The Lion Witch
by HellsingDMC
Summary: Sixteen year old Nala Lamia discovers some interesting news that was oddly enough hidden from her up until now. After losing her father and brother at a young age only time will tell how her life will play out. AU-ish
1. Ajusting won't be easy

_**A/N - Hey guys, I have this story completely done from a few years ago and I'm wondering if it's interesting enough to continue, please let me know so that way I can get started on editing. c: thanks,**_

Mom never told me why, all she said was that it wasn't safe anymore for me to be around Maine, probably because I was spitting fire, and transforming into cats left, right, and center. Yeah, I think that's why. She told me about this magic school in London; that's going to take _a lot_ of adjusting to get used to... And here I am thinking I was normal. Oh well, I better make the best of it; I certainly can't be staying here for too long anyways; besides, I'm in no rush, maybe I might like it there after all.

I look up at the big train station smiling like a fool, as much as I miss my little Canadian look a-like State I can't wait to start a new chapter in life; even if it involves blasting magic spells everywhere; that's going to be fun as fuck. London's frigid air whips around my mother and I as we both walk quickly towards the train station entrance. Dodging the other people who walk briskly along the brick tiles and heading to their _normal_ platform destinations. I feel the rush of excitement exhilarate through my body, along with the whirl of thoughts entering my head, mom grabs my arm breaking me out of my trance and briskly running towards the massive train station in front of us.

She must have tried some hard to conceal my identity from whoever runs that joint, considering the letter I was given clearly states "tenth birthday" in the print, and I'm sixteen; and it's nowhere near my birthday...

"Hurry up now, it'll leave any minute." She quickly vanishes inside the colossal, ancient building, blending in among the crowds of people with their children carrying on a normal everyday life style; me on the other hand, mine's going to be_ far_ from normal.

I hope the teachers there don't have sticks shoved up their assholes, at my current school I had so much fun running around and pulling pranks, and having sarcastic battles with a couple of them. I don't think I could handle it if they're all rude; not to mention gigantic douchebags.

I let out a short, yet determined huff before angling my large cart inside, I don't get the point of carrying this heavy thing around; yeah, I guess I basically packed up my entire room along with my cat and my owl; long story short on the owl we live near the forest, she kept perching herself on the tree outside my window for as long as I could remember, not to mention my mom clearly harbored a bunch of magical creatures hidden in those trees, because I grew up thinking everybody had a Hippogryph on the block; boy was I wrong. My books rattle against the birdcage and my calico cat, Niya who looks rather annoyed whereas Sevia, screeches in clear discomfort. People must think there's something wrong with me carrying all of these unusual things.

I'm amazed no one asked why I'm lugging around this huge cart, I mean it's definitely noticeable in a place like this; but then again, nobody's really staring at me or noticing me at all.

"Shut up both of you, I'm doing the best I can," I scold them as Niya whips her claw at my hand, obviously to her; my best isn't good enough, while Sevia grumbles an agitated chirp.

The train station has tons of people, hard to imagine someone designing this place. There are tons of trains stationed and ready to be boarded, but I don't see the one to the place where I'm headed, hopefully it shows up soon; I don't think I can move this cart any faster.

Mom stands near one of the giant pillars holding up this place, tapping her foot against the shiny floor of the train station as she waits for me, I can't tell if she's actually impatient or if she's being sarcastic like she always is.

"Okay where to now?" I ask her trying to contain my excitement as best as I can, she quickly turns around, walking as fast as she can down the numerous stairs, her aura is quite clouded, and I can't tell what she's thinking at all, she seems almost as if she's annoyed or pissed off at me for some reason.

Another one of my hidden talents consists of reading peoples emotional state, just one look at you and I can already tell how you feel; not to mention the hue of colors that shine brightly above the minds of others, it's quite useful is situations; I just haven't figured out _what_ situations yet.

Once we arrive to platform nine and ten, mom seems to let out a sigh of relief, as if she finally lost track of someone chasing us, which is highly unlikely; nobody even noticed our existence yet.

Her emerald green eyes shine across the sea of people before us, holding her finger to her lip and biting on her nails like she usually does when she's paranoid. Her long black hair flutters around her from the sudden breeze that emits from the steam engine that shows up against platform nine, something's clearly bugging her considering her color isn't showing at all.

My eyes scan across the sea of moving people as well, reading the platform numbers all aligned in a row on tall red and brown brick archways, trying to figure out where Platform 9 ¾ is. My mother on the other hand; keeps nervously glancing behind us every so often. I'm not sure why, she must be paranoid about all of these people in this ancient train station, I don't think anyone would try to harm us; unless she knows something I don't.

"Where's 9 ¾? All I see are platforms nine and ten." Curiously I gaze up at her, awaiting an answer filled with sarcasm; not to mention a teary farewell.

She just stands there, waiting and watching for something. Her emerald green eyes dart around the station with a worried expression painted on her beautiful, young face, her long black hair slightly flowing around her face from the breeze, and her black trench coat fluttering a tiny bit behind her. She notices me staring at her and slowly emits a soft smile, looking in my direction.

"You'll see, don't worry." my mother winks at me with a sly smile forming across her lips; she pulls the cart so it's facing the sturdy brick wall between the platform signs nine and ten. Baffled I stand there for a minute, trying to figure out what in the world is she trying to do.

The gears turn in my head for a minute, she stares smugly at me. This just _has_ to be one of her sarcastic jokes; it_ has_ to be. Sevia screeches and flaps her wings around the bird cage we found in our attic, telling me to hurry up I presume, while Niya on the other hand; just stares blankly at the wall where I'm faced at. She knows I caught on to what she wants me to do, I just can't believe she _wants_ me to do it, for all I know it's a real wall and I'll break my own neck!

"I am _not_ running through a wall." The words come out a little harsh, but she knows I don't mean any harm. I cross my arms looking at her like she's insane, frankly I'm starting to take the hint that she must be if she wants us to run through a wall. She sighs before taking my hand and looking at me in the eye, normally I'd shove her hand away from me; rebellious teenager afraid of public affection and all, but something's telling me that this might be the last time I can feel her motherly touch.

"Good; because it's not a wall, it's a pillar." She smiles slyly at me, with her emerald eyes blazing into mine; showing me that everything will be alright.

Well, she got me there. But still, it's a solid object; how in the Hell will this work? I guess I don't have much to lose, and she seems pretty serious about it. The cold air picks up its speed and howls against my face, making my long brown hair whip around in a swaying motion. I hesitate, staring at the wall and then back to mom a few times before I finally realize something;

She actually_ is_ dead serious.

It's almost as if time had stopped, the people hustling around the endless row of platforms seem to die down in noise, I can't tell if it's magic or if it's actually my thoughts drowning out the noise in this busy station. But none the less, I have to go through the pillar.

"A-Alright, I'm ready." I gulp a little, looking her in the eye and giving her a short nod, accepting the challenge of running head first into a pillar and possibly gaining a concussion in the process.

"Good, Nala." Without any warning, my mother smirks, letting go of my hand and placing it on my shoulder, her other hand rests against the cart handle next to mine. She shoves both the cart and me forward; urging me to run at full speed; I don't know how this'll end but I hope she's right about platform 9 ¾ being here.

It's crazy to even wrap my head around this whole idea of this, leaving the world I once called home, abandoning all of my games, my music, my internet, and especially all of my friends. I don't even have a way of contacting them at all; how will they know that I'm still alive?

I command my legs to run, I don't really have a choice anymore at this point to be quite honest; bursts of speed emerge from my muscles, propelling me forward into the now very terrifying brick pillar. I close my eyes trying to not scream in the process as well; no matter how badly I want to, people must think we're crazy running into a wall head on; who's idea was it to make Platform 9 ¾ be between platform nine and ten?! Insane I say; but very clever in its own way.

I brace myself for impact, squinting my eyes even tighter; afraid to really move but I urge myself forward anyway; Sevia squawks loudly, almost making me opening my eyes to check on her and see if she's okay, Niya on the other hand, is as quiet as a mouse.

I don't feel any different, but I hear different noises than what I did back on the other platform. I slowly open one eye at a time, still wincing from the imaginable pain from the force of the so called "Impact." Turning around, I face towards the brick archway; I see the sign saying platform 9¾. Clearly we made it through alive. Niya seems to stare at me with a look that shows how stupid she thinks I am right now. I mean, really; I should have just trusted mom from the start.

I gaze over at her as she pulls me towards the black old steam train that looks to be extremely long and pretty ancient. It has '_Hogwarts_' written on the side, which must be the place I'm going to. Kids are already hopping up and climbing aboard the train, parents wave goodbye and oddly enough the people here dress strangely; clearly it's not the same platform as we were on before.

Confused a little, I glance up at mom, hoping for her to provide me some answers and fill in the blanks but she's still looking back her shoulder almost every minute now like if the danger's getting closer and closer. From the corner of her eye, I can tell she sees me staring at her. She emits a very soft smile; and her aura tells me that she's a bit calmer now, knowing that I'm safe and that nothing horrible has happened yet.

"So what spell did you pull to get us in here," I ask my mother slyly, she stares at me in disbelief before shaking her head and muttering something, doubting my intellect on the whole new "magic" concept. Which I clearly don't grasp at all, I mean yeah, the whole fire thing and cat transformations back then; I thought it was normal. And if anything, I'd say I should pass all of my first year classes with flying colors.

Parents and kids scatter all over the area, some with owls, and others with cats and even a couple with frogs and rats. I can vaguely make out three red haired boy siblings and a girl sibling, also a boy with black hair and glasses standing near the train with a slightly motherly figure with red hair as well, behind them smiling at the children with such pride and confidence.

My eyes skim across the crowd of people, I notice a blonde haired boy looking down at his feet, not paying attention to his surroundings, being led by another blonde long haired person, possibly his mother who has a walking stick of some sort with a snake- never mind; _it's a male figure..._

The "man" turns around, as if he seems to have sensed me staring at him almost, and gives me a sharp glare; probably because I'm staring at him in a strange way. Taking his son by the hand and turning him away from me. His son looks up to see what his father was glaring at before running along the platform to the other side.

That was a bit odd; I guess people here are colossal jerks too. Yet I somehow can't for the life of me get that image out of my head, why is it those two in particular that linger in my mind? I don't even know them at all. Quickly, I shake it off and return my wandering eyes back to the ancient train. Mom's fingers lightly grasp my shoulder, causing me to turn around and to focus all of my attention onto her shimmering emerald eyes.

"I have something to give you, now... Where is it..." she mumbles the last part, reaching her hand inside her massive jacket pocket and fumbling around before pulling out a long black velvet box with gold designs on it.

My eyes lock on the box, the only thing I can think of it must be jewelry if it's in a fancy setup like that. But then again, this world is strange from what I'm used to; so I can expect a lot of surprises.

"Here it is!" She happily exclaims, opening up the lid to let me see what's inside. There's a glazed oak wood wand, with a tiny purple crystal at the bottom of it. Handmade designs are carved into the wood; I can't even contain my excitement at this point.

"It's amazing... I like it." I grin happily as she hands it to me and I respond to her by giving her a big hug, so much for the whole rebellious teenager phase.

Her smile focuses on this moment, trying to forget about the feeling she has. "I knew you would, naturally students go into Ollivanders and let their wands pick them; but for some reason I found this old thing lying around in the attic and when you were little; the wand already chose you."

Reliving those memories back inside of my head, the sudden realization hits me that maybe it wasn't just a random stick I was waving around outside; it must have been this thing.

The train whistles with a loud impatient-like noise, Niya and Sevia complain, completely ruining the whole Mother-Daughter moment right then and there, little bits of snowflakes begin to blow around from the frisky wind; causing the temperature to get a little colder, and making me glad that I brought my jacket along with me. The red haired siblings board the train; all but the girl one, along with the boy with black hair and glasses too.

My mother's eyes bounce around the station again, fear builds up greatly inside her tiny stature, she then returns her gaze back to me, trying to hold a few secrets back while her eyes study my body language towards this entire place.

"Nala, I just want you to know that whatever House you're put into," She began, looking me straight in the eyes while un-shed tears begin to glisten and a bit in my eyes as well.

"Your father would be so proud of you if he were here today. That's all he talked about was wishing to see the moment when you set off on your journey to Hogwarts ever since we had you... And, I want you to know that, I'll be proud of you for-"

She was rudely interrupted from her loving speech while manly voice roughly shouts across the station, intentionally for the two of us as my mother seems to perk up and let out a sharp sigh in protest.

Before anything can be registered inside of my head, black robed figures in masks swarm towards us from every direction. Mom hesitates, like she's deciding on whether to save my life or just run away right then and there. Then she tenses up a little bit before pushing me towards the train; reaching into her pocket I can tell she's taking out her wand and getting ready to battle for her life.

"Nala go, get on the train! And whatever you do; do _not_ look back!" My mother shouts at me, shooing me away towards the train while the people on the station platform begin to panic a little. Little did I know this would probably be the last time I ever seen my mother again.

"But-" The words escape my lips on their own, my eyes catch hers; looking into her dead serious green eyes, she returns the glance at me with a _Get-The-Hell-Out-Of-Here-While-You-Can_ expression on her face; turning around to face masked figures straight on. Her aura completely changes, getting ready to take on all of them at once which can only lead to disastrous events.

I guess I don't have a choice; nobody is doing anything because I don't even think they can. Not to mention I don't know full on spells to even jump in and help her... You better make it out alive, I still need you.

Sucking back the tears I immediately take my cart and shove it forward, towards the train while I grab my books and stuff them into my shoulder bag, grabbing Sevia's cage and my trunk while Niya jumps off the cart, annoyed by all of this commotion and begins to dash straight into the train without me.

"Damn cat, get back here!"Bitterly the words escape from my mouth, briefly forgetting about my mother and ducking under the usher's arm at the doorway. Most of the parents gawk at the figures and sent their kids off as quickly as possible before something bad happens to them, but once again; nobody tries to help save her.

I quickly board the train peering around some of the kids, trying to find Niya. Making my way around the train I find her sitting on the bench like chair next to the same blonde haired boy I saw on the platform with his father. And he doesn't look too pleased that an animal is sitting on his table.

"Is this _your_ cat?" The boy sneers looking at my outfit with a disgusted look on his face. His aura is telling me he's a complete rich kid, all stuck up and rude, his cold blue eyes swell with money and greed, continuing to look at me disgustedly.

"It is, and I'd kindly like her back." I growl, I'm really not in the mood to deal with this kid, I glare at the boy moving over so I could grab my cat with an irritated expression on his pale face. Clearly Niya didn't like the fact that I lunged at her; and yet again she takes off between my legs and runs to another booth.

"Nice one." The boy sneers rudely at me, crossing his arms and gazing out of the window watching the figures in black robes with a lustful glint in his eyes, clearly he's mesmerized by them; disgusting.

Whoever that kid was he seemed really, really annoyed by something that was out of my control. Hopefully I don't have to run into him ever again, or worse; but in the same House as he is. I find her sitting on the table in between two booth-like seats; cleaning herself just a few feet down from where the blonde boy is, nobody seems to be around so I guess that's my cue to grab her and shut the glass door behind me.

I sigh a little, entering the tiny cabin and shutting the door behind me. I then place all of my bags on the table that Niya's sitting on. Carefully I sit down on the red velvet seat, grabbing Niya so she can't take off again, embracing her as best as I can so that way she doesn't scratch my face off either. Sevia quiets right down, oddly enough she doesn't make a peep regards to her surroundings, Niya gives a little hiss stating she doesn't like to be held but I hold her closer to me anyways; peering out the window trying to find my mother.

"Hush cat, you've caused me lots of problems today and we're not even there yet." I scold her sternly, petting her head as she grumbles in return with a fierce tone.

I see my mother battling it out with some of the hooded masked men trying to stall them from reaching the train. I cringe a little when I see one of the men use a spell on my mother making her wand fly from her hands, landing just mere inches from the edge of the train platform.

The gasps from the bystanders who have now started to fled can clearly be heard from inside the train, I guess the situation finally got serious; and nobody still isn't trying to help her. I don't get it, it's just a group of hooded men wearing masks, and if I could throw a few spells out there I'd surely take care of all of them myself.

For a quick minute I swear I could have witnessed the terror that washed all over her face when she turned around to look for her wand, and her eyes lock onto mine thought the window; holding the gaze for a very long time for what it felt like at least. I look through the foggy window with a worried expression written all over my face, as she sweetly smiles to assure me it's going to be alright, when she turns around after finding her wand; one of the hooded figures takes a step forward in front of the others, pointing it's wand at her and casting a green spell that looks sickly and deadly; instantly knocking her down to the floor, lifeless and motionless.

My jaw drops and I cringe in pain when she hits the floor with a huge amount of force; my heart explodes and stops beating for a mere minute as I can feel the tension inside of me snap, watching dazed and completely unaware of what just happened.

The figure's eyes hesitate on me almost, looking at me through the foggy window. Its mask stands out from the others, crossed with swords along the mouth and two gaping eye holes. I can almost feel its eyes burning into mine, it hurts.

One half of me wants to exit the train, take out my new wand and murder them all; especially the one who's staring at me like that. But the other half is logical; and since all it took was one spell for her, surely it will be the same for me as well.

The crowd spreads out, half of them shrieking in terror and running the opposite direction. None of them stop by to even see if she's still alive. They all flee for their lives even though the masked figures weren't after them; they were after us.

I cover my mouth with my hand and quietly slump back into the seat next to the window, gazing at the wand she gave me that I set down on the table next to my trunk and Sevia's cage. I refuse to believe what had just happened a few seconds ago. I want to deny every urge that is telling me my mother is now, and always will be; forever gone. But we all know that it's the truth, and I will never see her again.


	2. Double the fun, I guess

The steam engine begins pulling slowly away from the platform, gradually picking up speed in the process, as if it too, is fleeing the crime scene. My eyes gaze outside of the window; still unable to process what exactly fucking happened. A few people begin to crowd around her corpse as the black hooded figures retreat from the chaos that they have created, into the shadows and out of sight for good. I can feel the wetness dripping down my cheeks, I've never cried a day in my life but I just lost the last person I had left. I don't even know if I can return back home now, it all depends on if my friends still think I'm alive to be honest, I don't know what my mom even told them all I know is that I have no way of contacting them at this school. I turn my body with my back leaning against the window and my feet up on the bench with my arms wrapped around my knees. Knowing that my mother is dead and I watched her die will forever haunt my memory.

Niya lets out a cry, jumping off of the table and curling up beside my feet on the bench. She's fairly old, mom's apparently had her longer than she had me, so you know; Niya must be magical because there's no way a normal cat can live that long. Even just mentioning her in general, this is going to be one Hell of a first day…

The scenery outside the window is nothing but green pine trees and grassy meadows; and hills that seem to roll on and on for miles. I keep my gaze at the window, trying to count the trees along the way but quickly giving up after ten or so. My eyes then glance up into the blue sky while a few stray clouds streak by, the sun shines brightly as if it's trying to make me feel better; it seems like a very nice and sunny day overall, but all I feel on the inside is dull and depressed.

The train continues to move forward, it feels like hours have passed when in reality it was only several minutes. It's a bit of a change to a train after everything else like a car, or a plane even. I've never been on a train really, so in some way I guess all of today wasn't so bad after all… Who am I trying to fool, as far as I know I don't have any family left and nowhere to go after all of this is done.

My eyes continue to gaze out of the mesmerizing window as we blaze against the tracks at full speed, my mind running around with thoughts in my head, along with memories as well. Several minutes later my ears catch on to the sound of two sets of footprints heading down the corridor towards my cabin.

Confused, I shift my glance towards the glass door; revealing two red haired boys around my age exchanging the same grin and waving through the glass at me. They look familiar; I think they were on the platform with their siblings and that blacked hair guy.

"Can we come in?-

Coming in anyways!" Their melody and harmony voices chime through the air, almost cleaning away every bit of negative energy built up in this tiny cabin. One of them opens the door while the other slides right in and sits across the table from me, still sharing the same grin as the other. My eyes just stare blankly at them, wondering why they all of a sudden chose to sit down here; not that there's anything wrong with it, I don't mind the company one bit; it's just, why me? Niya also questions them as well, gazing up at them from the table ledge.

"Where are our manners," One began, making room for his brother as he squeezes against the window ledge, still holding my eye contact without any ease.

"I'm Fred,

And I, am George." The other one shuts the door behind him and takes a seat next to his twin brother, still smiling the same smile when they first approached me with such a high volume of happiness. Both them seem to be quite a bundle of joy really; no sarcasm either. They also seem like the type of people I'd normally be friends with, considering at my old school I knew a couple people who act on impulse and can pick up negative energy in a snap.

"Nala…" I try my best to return their smile, and their level of excitement but after what happened; I think it's going to be hard to actually mean it when I smile again. My emerald eyes are still filled with fresh tears just waiting to overflow, while they both exchange quick worried glances. Their expressions quickly vanish slightly, focusing on the tears that still trickle down my cheeks.

"Everything alright, Nala?" Fred holds my gaze surprisingly well; his aura instantly fades from happiness into concern in a matter of seconds along with George's. Instantly I can tell them apart; not from their aura considering they almost share the same, but because Fred has more of a hypnotizing stare, not to mention his posture changes when he talks to people directly. And George is more of the quiet one, less vocal in situations.

"Yeah, just, I lost someone today." My fingers quickly wipe the tears away from my eyes, Niya takes it upon herself to jump up on the table in front of them and stare questionably into George's eyes, before turning her gaze towards Fred's in a defensive manner.

They both smile once more, Fred immediately clasps his hands around mine against the table and holds my eye contact once again, and oddly enough his calming touch doesn't fail to calm me down. It's almost like he's using magic, which he probably is; considering I'm not used to any of this yet.

"You may have lost someone today,

but, you also gained someone as well." Right on cue they both finish each other's sentences, flashing me a quick grin while they both watch my reaction.

"Gained someone?" I question them, blinking furiously to keep the remaining tears away from my face and showing up ever again, I can't even think straight with all of these sudden childhood memories flooding back in with her in them.

"Us." They both smirk, Fred releases my hand from his gentle grasp, while George reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small handful of chocolates wrapped up in animal wrappers, along with a few tiny firecracker- looking things. They immediately catch my interest, I've never seen anything like these before; naturally I'm only curious, they look normal but surely they aren't, everything's been _far_from normal since I even figured out about this place.

"They're one of our prototype chocolates, we're a lacking a name for them. We were thinking something along the lines of Patronus Chocolates but, we haven't had enough people test them out to see if they're correctly charmed." Fred confesses, while George leans back in the comfy bench and stretches out a little, still staring at me with a positive emotion.

"Yeah, and what do they do exactly? Open one and find out, and then I'll show you these." George's eyes motion towards the firecracker looking tiny things, they're wrapped up colorfully in stripes that arrange in a hue of colors; if anything they look like candy wrappers.

I guess it couldn't hurt to play around, after all; they seem really nice. My eyes glance down towards the array of chocolates that are spread out before me on the table, there's a few with animals on the wrappers; a lion, hyena, coyote, and a dog all with different colored backgrounds. My fingers linger over the coyote one, the image springs to life and starts snapping and snarling at them. Niya hisses at the image, swatting her paw at it while the coyote whimpers in fear and backs off. Immediately I jolt my hand away from it and it eventually calms down and returns back to a still image, highly confused I stare them in shock and disbelief while Niya just looks confused.

They both chuckle, before realizing that I'm serious; I have no idea what is going on whatsoever and I'm highly confused as to why the images started moving.

"Try another; some of them just don't like other people touching them." Fred encourages me with his charming smile once again, I sigh deeply; before reaching out my hand again, this time my fingers linger over the lion. It seems to be working rather well, the lion doesn't snap or growl; it just stares into my eyes with a piercing affect; almost like it's a part of me or something. I pick it up carefully, and hold it in my hands. George then grabs the coyote one without hesitating one bit, along with Fred who takes the hyena and then pops them both into their mouths with a huge grin still plastered on their faces.

"Don't be shy,

eat it; it chose you." They both chew the chocolates inside their mouths while stuffing the wrappers inside their pockets. My eyes linger on the image of the lion once more before I eventually give in and pull off the wrapper; revealing the sickeningly sweet scent of something I've never smelled before at all.

It doesn't smell like regular chocolate to me, it smells really, _really_ good actually. Without another word I place it inside my mouth, instantly it dissolves leaving a faint roar loud enough to only hear inside my head while I chew, causing me to panic a little.

"Muggle born? Or were you just raised in the Muggle world?" George's question also confuses me a little, I've never heard that term in my life. What the _fuck_ is a Muggle?

The delicious caramel-like chocolate melts away and disappears inside my stomach. I just stare at him confused again, they both exchange another look; this time they nod their heads in unison.

"It's clear to us that you have _no idea_ what's happening,-

at all.-

So, let us explain!" They smile brightly, Niya turns her head towards the glass door; staring out of it for a long time whereas they completely have my attention.

"A Muggle is a non magical person, a Muggleborn is someone who grew up in the Muggle World, and a Mudblood, well, don't say that;-

it's offensive." In unison, once again. It's amazing how spot on these two are; I can't imagine them being apart for too long either. They're making a lot of sense, it's just the choice of words are a little, strange. I don't get why they just say a human or something like that. I'm used to Role Playing Games so this won't take any time getting used to; plus I always played a Mage online so, I'm assuming it's the same concept. But I could have sworn when I was little all of those spells I did were just figments of my imagination unless mom, altered the memories somehow.

"I see, is there anything else I should know?" I tend not to show my personality right away, you see; some people won't take kindly to it at all. Especially people who are strict and stuck up… Boy did I have _fun_with those people back in my old school. The pranks I pulled and all of the shit I got into. Not to mention all of the shit I got away with, especially one of the teachers who helped me covered my tracks; I hope he still has his job.

They both look at each other, almost as if they're mentally asking each other what else there is to remind me about since I'm new to all of this in general. My eyes catch a glimpse of the outside noticing a strange castle off into the distance; which looks to be about twenty or so minutes away from where we are right now. The castle looks massive to me; despite how far away we are. I can also make out a rocky cliff that overlooks an ocean; I think. I won't know until we get there for sure; but if I were harboring illegal magic activities I'd definitely do it in a castle so I'm assuming that's the place.

"We'll leave the rest as a surprise; now, for these." George smirks once again, opening one of the wrappers and instantly colored sparks go whizzing around the closed cabin. Niya ducks under the table, terrified at what it is; me on the other hand, I can't keep my eyes off of the sparkling flames that sizzle and pop straight into the air after they're done flying around for a minute or so.

"A charmed firecracker, surely the Muggle World has firecrackers." Fred proudly states what exactly the little sparks are, George grins again while he opens another; this time it's blue sparks that sizzles around and pops right in front of my face; leaving a nice scent of burning embers behind.

I was a weird child growing up, I loved the scent of anything burning. Mind you I never tried to burn down a house or anything; unintentionally of course. I'm sure I had a few close encounters if all of those 'dreams' I so called had of me breathing fire or shooting fire from a 'broken twig' actually happened then yes; several occasions where I accidentally almost burnt our house down. Other than that I was never really a thrill seeker for flames; it was more or so around a small camp fire we had in our backyard. The scent just makes me happy on the inside, it's like my comfort food; except it's not edible.

"Yeah we have a ton of those; but they never go the way you want them to, these ones seem to know exactly where to go." I stare at them amazed by the magic affects, even though it's simple I still like it, I'm not used to it and something tells me there's _far more_ where that all came from too.

George laughs a tiny bit; his hand cradles the remaining fireworks as he scoops them back up and stuffs them inside his other pocket while Fred smirks a tiny bit as well.

"Hence the charmed part, Nala. You have a lot to learn my friend, _a lot_ to learn." He leans back on the bench, stretching his arms behind his head and resting it on his arms. George learns forward a little, gazing out of the glass door as if he's waiting for someone with a suddenly quiet expression and an alert sense of hearing.

"Not to worry, we'll take you under our wing; after all we need another victim." Fred winks at me jokingly; and so far I'm loving their sense of humor. It reminds me of mine and a couple of my old friends, except in a more magical, kind of way.

"Ha ha _very funny_, going to turn me into one of your test subjects, huh?" I sneer playfully, catching Fred off guard before he smirks once more.

"You already tried two of our products!" Fred chimes in, his eyes smile while they gaze into mine with a friendly invitation. I can tell the three of us are going to get along just fine indeed. I smile. I actually smile, none of the fake bullshit smiles I've been passing off throughout this entire conversation ever since I witnessed what I did. It's a genuine, actual smile… And well, he got me there too, that's for sure.

Without a warning, that same blonde boy who Niya practically leaped into the same cabin as him shows up against our glass door. His icy blue eyes pierce my emerald ones with a dark chill while his face is plastered with an angry snarl. He casually then walks by as if nothing ever happened and returns back to his seat, leaving me even more confused than I already am right now.

"And that my friend,

was Draco Malfoy; the spoiled brat." They sound a little irritated just mentioning his name, he must be someone not to bother with if they have this much of an impact on the twins. They both glance up at me, not surprised that I yet again, have another confused look openly on display once again.

"His father works for the Ministry of Magic- err, a big fancy place underground where magical punishments happen for breaking the law, and, I guess it's like a, government…? As the Muggle world calls it." Fred practically left George hanging a little bit on that sentence, instead of helping him finish them like he usually does. I don't blame him, government wasn't really my piece of cake in my old school so I guess it's a good thing that there isn't really mandatory classes here on it.

The castle edges closer and closer into view; only then do I realize how massive it is compared to the rest of the area it's nestled on. The jagged cliff looks like a tiny platform just for the ancient Scottish looking piece of art, not to mention it was roughly mid morning when I arrived at the London station; and it's now settling in around the late afternoon. I guess time _really was_ going by fast. The sun sets beautifully across the water and illuminating the castle's massive size once again. It must be hard concealing such a thing in plain sight.

"I guess we arrived, see you soon,-

sooner than you think, too." The twins smile briefly once more in my direction, standing up and nodding briefly at each other before waving and walking out of the cabin and down the small corridor. Is there even a day that goes by when those two aren't happy, I really like their personalities… Hopefully I'm not too far away from them; they look about my age considering the rest of the people I've glimpsed at on this train.

The huge engine comes to a halt at the makeshift station; my eyes immediately drift to look outside of the window. There's a wooden train platform next to the mighty ocean, along with a visibly long river-like gap between the platform and the rocky steps towards the castle. I can make out a handful of people standing by the platform who look a little _too old_ to be students; a _very_tall man with a shaggy, curly brown beard holding a torch and having a bloodhound by his side, a fairly aged woman wearing a green pointy hat with a matching robe and a stern expression on her face standing alongside an older man with a long grey beard and a white and blue robe, not to mention a younger man with jet black hair and a matching robe, and a greasy scowl plastered across his face with no intention of being delightful whatsoever. Yeah, it's going to be a _fun_year; _wonderful._


	3. The Houses are upon us

The excitement radiating off of everyone is almost unbearable, friends chatter among themselves as they gather their pets and begin to head off of the train; oddly enough leaving their bags and other belongings behind. Personally it doesn't make any sense to me, but most of these people have been here longer than I have so I might as well just do the same and not worry about it.

Niya purrs a little bit, her eyes close while she looks a bit sleepy; I don't blame her, she hasn't been able to close her eyes at all during all of that excitement with the chocolates, poor thing. I smile to myself, scooping her up with one hand between her front legs and begin to walk down the small corridor towards the train's front door. My eyes linger around the outdoors; the air smells nice and fresh, just like in Maine; and the water sparkles delightfully against the setting sun. The people that are set out to greet us look surprisingly happy about everyone's arrival; besides Mr. Pouty Pants over there, dressed in all black.

For some reason I _can't_ keep my eyes off of him. No, not like that;_especially _not in that cliché way either. He just looks oddly familiar to me. His posture, the look of death in his dark eyes that resemble an empty void of nothingness, not to mention the permanent scowl etched into his face. Half of me wants to dwell into this fact and figure out why, but the other half of me wants me to leave it alone, and stop being creepy.

I keep my eyes focused up around the front where the crowd is by the river as I make my way off of the train, holding Niya who's almost completely passed out in my arms. In front of the crowd there's a shit ton of tiny wooden boats meant for a few people at a time, you'd think they'd have a drawbridge but I guess not. Me and boats don't really get along too well; long story short I kept falling in during camping trips, so this should go _swimmingly._

Niya's eyes open sluggishly, before catching sight of the man up at the front who's staring at us. Instantly she wakes up and flicks her tail around, as if she's about to pounce straight out of my reach and attack him viciously. But instead, she just grumbles a little, climbing up through my hair and perching herself on my shoulder with her claws digging into my jacket to keep her balance.

The students chat among themselves for a bit, I can see Draco up near the front with a couple other people wearing green ties with black robes that have the same color stitched on the inside of the robe, of course he's glaring at me as well which is just fucking wonderful; I haven't even _done_ anything to him yet and he's already treating me like an alien. And then the black haired kid with a curly brown haired girl who I haven't seen before, alongside a red headed boy who I'm assuming is related to Fred and George, I could be wrong but I swear I saw the twins with them and the red haired woman on the platform earlier today.

Once again I can feel a pair of eyes locked onto me like never before, of course I don't want to look around and find out who; give or take it's either Draco or that freak up front. But I don't give into the temptation of finding out for the sake of actually not trying to piss anyone off this year; all though Draco's already defeating_that_ purpose already. Quickly I head towards the back of the cluster of students in an attempt to hide from the sensation as the older one takes a step towards the front of the crowd and begins to explain the rules and guidelines.

"What did I say,-

we told you!" It's like they know where I always am, not to mention they almost startled me. The twins approach me from the side where there's a small path of students who moved out of the way, telling me that they were more so closer to the front to begin with. They still carry that same old grin, each of them placing an arm around my shoulder with me in the middle as Fred ruffles the top of my hair with his hand.

Niya looks a bit annoyed, being unable to escape all of the chaos for some peace and quiet, she's usually a pretty timid creature at most; I don't know why mom suggested taking her to a place like this that isn't quiet at all by the looks of things. None the less she manages to still balance on my shoulder, more so clinging to the front of my jacket than anything, really.

"Long time no see, huh?" He jokes a little, moving his arm back so that way Niya has some room to work with as he moves his attention to the red haired boy ahead of us who gives Fred a weird look in response and nudges the black haired boy beside him.

"That's our brother, and his friends. They're nice, I think." George fills me in with a little sarcasm before I even ask the question as to who that was who gave him a weird look. I swear it's like he knows what I'm going to say almost every time, am I just _that_ predictable? The black haired boy turns around, trying to be discreet about it but failing horribly as our eyes lock onto each other's; he has small round glasses and not to mention an odd scar above his forehead that's trying to hide behind his bangs. His expression doesn't change, it doesn't look like he's mad at me at all; but it certainly doesn't look very friendly either.

"Oh, it makes sense." My eyes jump back to George who snorts in an attempt to hold back a light laugh, probably thinking of something clever to say knowing him.

"It's because we're ginger, isn't it?" He recoils with a tiny smirk, patting my shoulder gently with a sly expression as Fred break his trance from the ocean.

"All gingers must be related, you say?" Fred hears the conversation, joining in and picking fun at me while the two of them giggle, nudging me to the point of making me crack a smile.

"Hey, you said it; not me." My smile widens while they both nod their heads trying to hold back another outburst, in fear of interrupting the speech that we aren't even paying attention to. I really like this; it feels like I never even left. That's what I did all the time back at my old school, we'd laugh and laugh until it hurt, not to mention it was contagious and everyone would join in to the point of the teachers giving up eventually and either getting fed up with it or finding enjoyment out of it as well. I hope there are more people that are like them; otherwise it'll get boring pretty quickly.

"Don't worry about the words, we'll fill you in as we go along." George leans over towards me so he doesn't interrupt anyone else, considering half of the back row looks either annoyed or generally pleased with us right about now.

We stand here for a few more minutes, listening to what exactly is going to happen when we enter through the doors of the castle, such as the whole sorting process and then a fancy feast. I can't wait to see how all of this is going to work out considering I haven't had time to eat yet. My eyes once again bounce around at the scenery, gazing at the autumn colored trees surrounding the cliffs around the ocean, and the huge open plains that's behind the castle which contain a court set up for some sort of games I believe and a huge dead tree that resembles a willow tree far off towards the edge of a dark forest next to a pumpkin patch that contains a small hut.

"I wonder what House you'll be put in." George glances over at me, breaking my deep thoughts and questions about the areas nearby and then gazes at the people up at the front, catching eye contact with the one dressed in all black who shoots him the dirtiest glare I've ever seen in my life.

Of course he's going to be that one that I won't get along with what so ever, he reminds me of Draco almost, all though I haven't really talked to him yet. I bet he's _full_ of sunshine and rainbows at this point. That look he has going on just screams 'bathe me' anyways.

"What's_his_ problem?" Casually I pretend to ignore his eyes that shift from Fred and George and onto me heavily while Fred looks a bit concerned, keeping his eyes on him while George just smiles.

"That's just ol' Snape,-

he's quite a downer." They both sound irritated; like, _Draco_ irritated when he showed up outside of our closed door on the train moments ago. His dark eyes still burn into mine, leaving a dark essence that strangely feels familiar to me.

That name _does_sound familiar to me, but I honestly can't put a finger on where I've heard it before. I know mom never mentioned about anything on this school so I know she didn't say anyone's names either; I'm assuming she went here based on her magic ability as well, it makes sense really. But that's odd, it's like I do remember him from somewhere; but where...?

Eventually all of the students begin to move forward towards the dock, the curly bearded man bellows a hearty laugh while his dog playfully barks at a few of the students as they make their way towards the boats. He then begins to untie them from the docks and helping the students in one by one, packing at least three to a boat and giving them a push off towards the school guiding by lanterns that are attached to the hull.

"Boat time,-

this will be fun." They exchange cheery smiles, linking their arms with mine and dragging me along towards the front of the crowd as the other students begin to pile in and drift across the passage towards the huge stone entrance. The other people, teachers I'm assuming stand along the edge, all of their eyes seem to drop instantly towards me when the three of us approach the last few of the boats with smiling eyes, yet I can feel that something doesn't feel right to them as well.

"Why hello Hagrid,-

nice day isn't it?" The twins nod in his direction as he flashes them a quick smile, unhitching the rope from the boat while we pile in together.

"Nice day indeed lads, now off wit' ye.'" He smirks again, helping the next set of students inside while our boat slowly drifts towards the stone entrance along with the countless other ones filled with the other students.

Niya clings onto me even tighter than she ever has, curiously I glance over the edge of the boat down into the water, even though it's getting dark outside I can still make out a bit of odd things below us. I'm not quite sure but I think I spotted a mermaid or something human-like swiftly swimming down below. It's wispy and dark so I can't really tell _what_ exactly it is, but since this is a magical place full of magical creatures I'll just assume it's a mermaid for the sake of not stirring up any panic.

"Once we get there we'll be heading towards the main hall, I can't _wait_ to see the look on your face when you walk through the doors." George replies casually, stretching out inside the boat causing it to sway a little while Fred still stares out towards the open ocean, not saying a word.

"Not to mention what House you get sorted in; this is just a guess but based on how you're observant and quite quiet I'm assuming Ravenclaw." He also follows his brother's gaze towards the open water, wondering what's curiously gotten him so hooked.

"What other Houses are there, besides that one?" Nobody's really mentioned anything about them to me so naturally I'm curious. Mom hasn't even told me which one she was in; like I said, she never mentioned _anything_to me about this place.

George collects himself, bringing his attention back to me while flashing me another smile.

"Well I'm glad you asked; Gryffindor, the House me and Fred here belong to, are mainly characteristics of courage and protection... Something like that, Slytherin, is mainly cunning and sly; but somehow it's full of assholes, Ravenclaw is more about wisdom than anything really in my opinion, and Hufflepuff, well, Hufflepuff is loyalty and honesty-

the hat will look inside your mind, so whatever you're hiding; it won't be hidden for long. That's how it places you in the correct House, so I'm also curious as to where you'll be placed." Fred's eyes peel away from the ocean and focuses on the both of us as he finishes George's sentence, I can feel the boat touch the stone rocks while the three of us help each other out and onto the set stone stairs that lead into another passage of the castle.

The second we enter through the passage, I'm greeted with ancient stone walls that are the color of sand almost, not to mention they're stacked so this place is beyond cathedral sized, along with an extremely tall moving staircase in the center that seems to move randomly every few minutes, and looks to be connected to everywhere in this confusing maze. Not to mention it looks to be about several levels tall too. There are moving Victorian style painting everywhere; ranging from anything you can think of; from royalty, to villagers, and even some foreign ones from Asia and North America. They seem to be chattering away among themselves and waving at the newer students. My eyes also catch a glimpse of a few medieval spirits roaming around the other halls, some of them are knights judging by their armor that they wear, whereas others look like royalty and poets. They also stop and wave, while exchanging a few hearty hellos here and there. The place is lit only by candles that are mostly torches hanging from the walls, or floating in mid air; I don't see any power outlets so this could get messy for me.

"We're headed towards those wooden doors,-

this is so exciting for me to watch." They both can't wait to figure out what House I'll be sorted into, personally I can't wait either. They both place their arms around my shoulder like we've been good friends for years almost, laughing and going on about how wonderful it would be if I'm sorted into Gryffindor as we make our way towards the colossal Oak wood doors that lead into the main hall where the other students are headed.

The level of excitement is almost equal to as it was when we arrived at the London train station this morning, this place is breathless, I can't even describe it. It feels like a dream; this place is just so wonderful, I'm glad I'm here now. I don't know why I even worried about staying here, screw the rest of the people I left behind; this place is just pure amazing.

My eyes widen in pure joy while I spin around glancing at all of the paintings and seeing the smiles on the faces of the other students, my gaze is crossed by the path of the dark character who's lingering around with the other teachers while he silently judges me probably. Fuck, why does he have to be so weird?

We enter the main hall, there's rows upon rows of wooden long tables set up, not to mention a sea of floating candles lingering above us by several feet; and the ceiling... The ceiling looks enchanted; it reminds me of an LCD projector of a beautiful scene that's set in the Heavens with fluffy clouds and ruins of some sort that move slowly like a movie screen.

Up at the front of the main hall, there's a long table that sits across from the other ones put into rows, along with a stand that has a golden statue of some sort with what I'm assuming are the House animals considering this room is covered in red, green, blue, and yellow banners with crests on them.

"Amazing isn't it?-

Caught me off guard the first time too." They drag me along towards the front of the room, somehow even though the teachers were behind us they managed to get ahead of everyone and end up in the front of the room near the stand along with the older one who appears to be holding an old ragged looking hat with a face engraved inside the cloth.

"Welcome everyone, I see a bunch of new faces here and I would love to get started; that is why I gave you the jist of it outside earlier. Now, I will be calling up the names of the first years in order so we can begin this tedious process. Professor McGonagall; if you will." His voice echoes off of the walls in the massive room, which surprises me greatly considering how old he looks, not to mention the place is massive so making your voice echo off the walls is quite impressive.

He then turns towards the older lady, who nods her head silently and reaches inside of her pocket. Pulling out a long script-like list that extends all the way down to the floor. A few groans can be heard from the crowd realizing how long this will actually take.

"First off, Helena Arch." Her eyes scan across the sea of new comers while a young girl timidly approaches her while shyly glancing down at the floor below her. She places the large hat on top of the girl's head; the hat automatically springs to life in a scratchy voice.

"Ahh, yes. An Arch... Where to put you, where to put you... Honest and loyal you say? In that case; Hufflepuff!" A crowd cheers across the room, all of them wearing yellow ties whereas the rest of us clap for her achievement. McGonagall's lips twitch into a small smile, quickly turning her gaze back to the never ending list of students as she calls each of us up one by one.

The tedious part was correct all right, and endless sea of cheering from each of the Houses ensues while students are being called up and quickly dismissed into their Houses. One by one the crowd slowly gets smaller, it's not so much fun having a last name in the middle of the alphabet but the real pain lies in being one of the last few names left to call up.

Fred and George manage to stay quiet during the name callings, not that it's a bad thing that they talk and joke; I do the same thing, but they're awfully quiet for some reason, and their eyes are focused up at the front of the room where the professors; I guess that's what they call themselves are standing. I can sense the colors changing rapidly around most of them, but the dark one; Snape, was his name? He has just a hue of black circling around his dull exterior.

Niya casually meows, stretching her neck up and licking my chin, resting her face against my neck and purring deeply inside my long hair while we wait for my turn to be called forward.

"Nala Lamia, you are next." Her eyes already lock onto me, as if she knows who I am. The entire room grows silent, Fred and George smirk at me, shoving me forward towards the row of professors while McGonagall raises the hat so it's just hovering above my head.

"Quite a feat this one is." Before she even places the hat down on my head it begins to talk, she hesitates a bit; glancing over and the Headmaster while he nods his head in silence. She places the hat down fully on top of my head and suddenly I'm engulfed by a warm yet odd sensation. Niya meows once more, breaking the silence the only way she knows how to do it; by being irritating.

"My my, we've got an array of colors on this one. Honest, loyal, cunning, courage, wisdom... What a difficult task this one this will be." The hat ponders a few choices, taking a bit longer to make up its mind than it did with the other students. Fred's eyes lock onto mine and he smiles giving me thumbs up while George pats him on the back, grinning up at me as well.

"Slytherin."

The entire room grows silent. McGonagall, taken by surprise; immediately reaches for the hat and carefully pry's it off of my skull without saying another word. She shoos me along towards my respected place over in the corner by the green ties where the bastard himself is sitting with his two little minions.

The twins eyes change from happiness into sheer worry as I trudge over towards my House, I bet nobody excepted this at all judging by the way everybody's acting. But why did they have such high hopes for me in the first place? What exactly did mom hide from me before she was murdered...? It's like she already knew who I was, it's like they _all_know who I am. Why is everybody so surprised that I'm placed into Slytherin? It's not a bad House, it just has a bad reputation that's all.

I take a seat by myself near the furthest end of the table, Niya curiously glances up at me once more, before jumping off of my shoulder and landing on top of the table. She gazes into my eyes as if she's trying to tell me something; but she's a cat, she can't talk no matter how bad I want her to.

McGonagall continues reading off of the list until there's nobody left and everybody has a House to call their home, the Headmaster takes over the podium with the glorious words I've been waiting for all night;

"Let the feast begin!" He bellows with a mighty laugh, instantly the tables pop up with fresh, delicious looking food. Chicken, steak, salad, buns, a mighty feast is spread out about the tables in the room while everybody digs in enjoying their time and making friends, whereas I on the other hand, manage to stay alone and reject any chances of people mingling with me right now.

I'm not upset that I was put into Slytherin, I think it's a good fit. I'm more mischievous than anything. If anything what bugs me is how everybody reacted, it's like it was a bad omen or something. I don't quite get it, I don't really get _any_of it to be honest. I wish she was still here so I could ask questions about what the fuck is going on. I know I was told my father left right after I was born to protect me and my brother, but my brother was killed in an accident when he was six and I was just three years old. Other than that; I don't know _shit_.

I pick at my food; chicken is especially my favorite by far so of course I loaded my plate with literally nothing else besides chicken. Niya also helps herself by stealing a leg from the plate that has all of the chicken on it, chewing on the meat while she sits beside me on the table purring happily.

Maybe things won't be as bad as they seem, maybe after when all of this dies down I can go for a nice walk, or perhaps ask one of the professors just exactly what's going on with me in my case, if anything they might give me answers. I doubt the twins would know what's going on, speaking of the twins; I really hope they aren't broken inside for us being separated by Houses. I glance back over at the Gryffindor table; they seem to do the same with mine as well. Our eyes meet and instantly their moods go from slightly depressing into a happy ball of energy, they smile and wave as they dig in with their brother and his friends sitting next to them. The black haired boy suddenly meets my gaze as well, he looks strangely content with me still, and maybe later I should try to talk to him after the feast; it might be good to actually make friends for once. Eventually my eyes make their way to the professor's table, and right away I should have guessed it;

Snape's eyes linger on me once again, even though I'm at the very back he makes little to no effort to hide the fact that he's staring directly at me; piercing though my soul almost with a shattering emotion of some sort. He seems content on the far side of the room, taking a sip from his glass he then places it down beside his plate and continues to eat, glancing up at me here and there every so often. I have a weird connection with him, I can't put my finger on it; but I can tell you right now it's _definitely_ not a Father-Daughter one either.


	4. A few days in

I've been here for a few days in Hogwarts, so far nothing's really changed. I also learned a few things too, the Headmaster's name is Dumbledore, the black haired kid is Harry Potter, and I'm also really terrible at everything else besides transfiguration and anything that deals with death and destruction.

But one of the important things I've also learned so far is that my mother was a Ravenclaw, other than that; nobody will tell me shit. And Potions class, don't even get me started. I'm stuck with Snape in that class and it's just awful to even think about. Not to mention he's one of the head professors for Slytherin so I'm tortured by him constantly. He's just too unhappy and he seems creepy with the way he _'accidentally'_ bumps into me almost everywhere I go and that glare he gives the twins when I'm with them. It's like jealousy consumes him whole and it just leaves me confused as to why he feels this way.

Enough of that prick; the paintings on the wall are really nice; I've befriended several of them near our dorm room, not to mention in the hallways. They'll tell me stories of what it was like back in the old days here, not to mention the talk a lot about my mom; nothing really important just how she was always talking with the paintings and spirits rather than the actual living people who attend here, and studying in the halls with them. Then again, I've met some of the spirits that linger around here as well; I like all of them more than the living people so that must mean something, right?

The dorm room I'm in is just a single one, I prefer not being with anyone as I sometimes need my space and I'll turn into a colossal bitch if I don't get it, so, I had an arrangement made. Not to mention due to my introverted state, it's not advised that I'd have a roommate. Because of my single dorm; the twins love to sneak in from time to time just to hang out and mess around, like I said I basically packed my entire room, including my laptop, my small flat screen, my old Gameboy, my phone, and a few old classic gaming consoles in fear of them being taken away when I get back home,_if _ I get back home.

Fred seems to like the whole concept of Pokémon; considering he borrowed my Gameboy a couple days ago and he's had his face in it ever since, and that's all he really talks about. Who doesn't love a good classic Yellow version with a cute little fat Pikachu following you everywhere? Not to mention he loves the legend of Zelda as well, a fine choice indeed. George likes a lot of the things I brought over too; he's not addicted like Fred, and he's also trying to figure out if we can magically generate WiFi too because the concept of the internet intrigues the both of them; but I doubt it's going to work. It doesn't really matter, everything else works without the internet, plus the two of them just hang out here and basically learn about what I did to keep myself entertained before this happened so I don't really see a point of creating WiFi out of thin air, I've learned to accept the fact that everyone I was once in contact with before I was sent away here are no longer a part of my life.

I feel like I turned them into monsters, Fred especially. But getting these things to work here is what took me the longest time to figure out. Never mind the fact that there's literally no electricity here; I had to scrounge around the library and see if I could find some electric generating spells, when I did; we took a trip down to Diagon Alley and bought some of the supplies we needed to make it work; long story short we rigged up this magical generator and presto! Power for days. And the best part? Nobody suspects a thing, and it's only the twins that know about it. Niya also prefers to sleep in here most days, but every once in awhile I'll manage to get her out and about. Other than that, I'd say it's been pretty awesome living here; I love most of my classes, which is a first.

I silently make my way down one of the empty halls in the castle, for once the twins haven't found me yet at all today, probably because I decided to just not go to my classes and explore the castle a bit. Don't get me wrong, most of the Professors here are alright, they're not really up to my standard but I have the twins; they're like, five people I knew from my old school combined so I'm on my toes a lot with them, I was just having one of those days where I just wanted to be alone; and since I couldn't hide out in my dorm I decided to take a walk to clear my mind.

Niya trudges along beside my feet keeping up with my pace on her tiny little legs while my eyes gaze out into the ocean once again through the massive windows. I can't help but just feel like I need to get out there, I don't know what to do once I'm out there; but it's an odd feeling. Usually I hate the water too so, it's really strange.

Just as I'm about to turn the corner towards where my dorm room is located, the fluttering motion of a black cloak catches my attention and before I know it there's Snape himself walking down the same hallway with his dark eyes yet again locked onto me.

Instantly I tense up, even just being around him gives me the chills. I'm well aware that I'm alone besides him and Niya, not to mention the slight change in his aura put me off guard; considering I just noticed he has a few colors outlining the dark ring around him. We both stop in the hall without exchanging a single word to each other. His eyes study my features while mine does the same, his freakishly pale skin, greasy back hair, and that robe has a deathly scent lingering onto it. His coal-like eyes then narrow greatly at me.

"You were not in my class today, why was that?" His dull voice rings through the air while his arms cross against his chest, he tries to come off all intimidating and intense but quite honestly, I just don't see it in him. If anything he's lacking a sense of, well, _anything._ Don't get me wrong, he's smart and cunning. I can see through most of his disguises already; such as he gives off a shit vibe towards everybody else but in reality he just doesn't want them around him because of what he's capable of doing. And I know he knows that _I know_ because he mentioned it subtly in class one day, none the less holding eye contact with me the entire fucking time he said it. Not to mention I'm in the front; but I think it's a coincidence because I showed up_really_ late the first day due to oversleeping and nobody really wants to be that close to him either. What can I say? A lot happened the first day.

"Why do you care all of a sudden, and no I wasn't; I had things to take care of." My voice sharpens greatly, while my eyes narrow, waiting for his lack of remorse response to hit me in the face like usual.

His eyes soften a bit, still holding his piercing glare but I can see it; and he knows I see it so he starts to tilt his attention to something else in the hall, like one of the paintings off to the side who seems to just roll its eyes at him and turns around to do something else.

"We all have things in life that we must fix, missing class is no excuse." His eyes still don't leave mine even though he's being an arrogant dick towards me, one of his so called _'favorites'_ as the twins like to joke about with me, considering everywhere I go I see him.

"Bite me, asshole." Not really having anything else left to say, I push past him and continue walking down the hall, he just stops and turns around; staring at me from afar with his eyes burning into the back of my head with hatred, and a little bit of disappointment for who knows what reason.

Half of me wants to go back inside my dorm and hide, play some video games, listen to some music even; but the other half of me wants to go outside and walk across the field, towards the ocean and dive right in... I don't know what, but something keeps calling to me down there; and I really want to figure out what it is, and what it wants.

_'The ocean is as ancient as the land we walk on, do not take it so lightly if you end up being stranded out at sea; for you are in the mercy of the waves now.'_ Mom never let me near the ocean; I never had the chance to experience the beach even though it was right next door almost. Hell she never let me near _any_kind of water to be honest. On a few camping trips, once in a blue moon she'd let me go out in a small boat; but it never ended well. Even when it was raining, she would never let me leave or even risk me going outside for some strange reason that I still haven't figured out. That nagging feeling won't leave my brain and in all honesty I don't think it'll stop unless I try something.

Carefully I gaze around the ancient walls inside the castle, making sure that nobody is around while I quickly head out the side door through the massive garden that's next to the stairs descending towards the dungeons and the Slytherin common room. There's an ancient fountain with all four of the crest animals on it standing in the center of the massive indoor/outdoor room, with pink flowers spread out around the grounds. There's a few stone paths leading into four doorways, three of which lead back inside the castle whereas the farthest one straight ahead leads to the outside world. The bushes around the base of the pillars that are holding up the slightly crumbling glass roof have vines growing from them; crawling up around the pillars and attaching themselves along the glass. Usually there's several people sitting beside the pillars on the grass in here, or on the benches doing work, but oddly enough nobody's here so there must be one more class left to go to today. That doesn't bug me, that's perfect actually.

Niya looks hesitant as I cross through the grass towards the other door leading to the outside grounds. She firmly plants herself in the grass and just stares at me with her eyes locked onto mine, her tail flicks back and forth against the ground as if she's reluctant on me heading outside alone.

"Not coming? I'll be back soon then." I smile softly towards her while she grumbles in protest, watching me leave the garden and through the solid wooden doors into the outside world.

The sunlight is strong today, bouncing off of the lake that's down below near the bottom part of the hill. The hill is huge; all of the grass is short, and not to mention there's a small slightly damaged stone path leading towards the dark forest. The path breaks off near a circle of massive boulders towards the Quidditch court, Hagrid's hut, and the lake. The cliff however, is furthest away and there's no path leading towards there. Luckily I can manage to see where it is, the plains itself is rather flat for being so huge near the drop off towards the ocean.

I've heard of cliff diving before, I even saw a couple videos on it floating around the internet and I must say, it looks really cool. I know a spell or two that can gently lift me up to the top of the cliff if worse comes to worst. The feeling is suddenly growing stronger as well, the closer my legs carry me towards the edge of the cliff; the closer I am to figuring out what this feeling is. It's almost like a surprise, like I have that familiar feeling that I'll run into a familiar face or something, but I won't know until I get there and honestly I can't wait until I reach the end of the cliff.

The green grass slowly fades into little rocks here and there as I reach the top of the massive drop off. The view is breathtaking; the wind from the ocean breeze reminds me of Maine almost instantly the second it hits my face with the familiar salty scent, the height I'm at is unbelievable, I'm at least a few hundred feet high off of the ground alone. The sunlight hits the deep water with a beautiful reflection that illuminates all the way down the vast ocean, my black and green robe whips around from the massive wind coming off of the ocean front, while touching my skin and freezing me completely.

The feeling is stronger than ever, my eyes suddenly catch a glimpse of something shiny down in the ocean below. It must be huge if it can catch my attention from up here, the only question is; how the fuck am I going to get to it?

While pondering the idea of how to get down there without getting hurt towards the shiny object down below, instantly I'm hit with a cold chill, almost as if death itself is stalking me among the trees. My body itself tenses up and automatically I notice a shadow of someone or _something_standing directly behind me. Every fiber in my body is telling me to not turn around, but in order to return back to the castle; I_have_ to turn around.

In the end I decide to fully turn myself around; completely not ready for what's standing behind me ever so silently. The figure appears to be wearing a robe darker than black, all rough and jagged around by the ground, the second my eyes reach towards its face, my eyes widen in complete fear.

A mask, not the one with the swords laced around the mouth hole, but a white mask with small designs on the front of it with its hood pulled completely up over its head. The two of us just stand there, staring back at each other with no words exchanged between us at all. The ocean breeze picks up once again, stirring both of our robes in the intense wind while the figure slightly raises his hand a little bit in front of him, in my direction.

I can't even find the words to scream at whoever this is, I know it wasn't the one who killed my mother; but whoever this is was in the group when it happened; and all I want to know is why her, why did it have to target the only thing I had left?

"W-wait!" I holler against the sudden wind storm that's brewing around us while we linger over the rocky drop off towards the dark ocean below. The figure stops for a second, lowering its hand to its side and tilting its head at a slight angle, as if it's waiting for me to finish my sentence with a bit of patience.

"Who are you, what do you want with me?" The words barely escape my lips with such a cold chill trickling down my spine, I can feel a few tears brimming around the corner of my eyes while the memories begin to flood back in from the platform; where they took her life in front of my very own eyes. The figure silently breathes in, almost like a deep empty sigh before raising its hand once more towards me with a vile energy dripping from around the figure.

Without another word, black wispy-like smoke begin to sprout from his outstretched hand, causing circles of black smoke to amplify against the wind, and causing a huge gust of wind barreling straight towards me. The sky darkens around the figure; black, deathly clouds are surrounding everything with a few strikes of lightning off in the distance. The sun is now hidden by darkness; the scent of death lingers nearby. My eyes widen knowing exactly what the figure's trying to do; as my feet eventually lift off of the ground from the intense wind, and hurl me over the side of the cliff without any remorse or struggle.

The feeling of having nothing under me terrifies me greatly, I can feel myself falling a great distance but my eyes never leave the side of the cliff's face with the hooded figure standing at the top, gazing down at me as I fall faster and faster towards the crashing waves and jagged rocks below. Everything fades to black instantly, if this is where I'm going to die I'd rather do it with my eyes closed, so that way the last thing I see won't be that person up there.


	5. The child of color

I can't comprehend anything anymore, one second I was falling; and the next I'm trapped inside the drowning thoughts of my own scattered mind. My emotions are flinging around the place, and everywhere I look has nothing but darkness, and everything else is cold to the touch. I've managed to hear a few muffled voices here and there; but it sounds like I'm still trapped in a cold, watery grave. Everything is disorientated, time especially. No matter how hard I try to scream, to grab any attention what so ever; my voice just completely fails me. Any movement I try to muster with my limited strength results in a failure; I'm hopelessly trapped in this never ending darkness.

"H... do y...u e... kn... sh...s st...l bre...ing?"

"Pati...ce, she w... c...e thro...h."

The muffled voices are slowly starting to emerge from the depths of wherever they're coming from. Instead of being drowned out from the sound of the crashing waves, I can vaguely make out the words spoken between them and that alone gives me hope.

I can't tell how many minutes have passed by in here; the darkness began to ripple like water, crackling against my vision without any sound to accompany the strange experience. A prisoner to my own mind once again, I can't help but let my mind linger towards the twins; how disappointed they'd be in me for doing something so stupid without inviting them to tag along, and Niya; if only she could talk, I'd never hear the end of it. All of these clustered emotions just keep piling up on top of me, pushing me back down towards the depths of my subconscious.

"A...y ti...e n...w."

My eyes scan across the rippling darkness trying to locate where the sound's coming from. Suddenly, swirling around in the darkness I notice the different hues of color that begin to make their appearance after being so used to seeing nothing but black. Strikes of violet, and dark blue churn against the rippling affects of the dark that I'm currently trapped inside of, timing with the rippling motion throughout my small world.

I've never witnessed anything like it, the sudden emotion that follows around with the dark colors swirling about in the mix of darkness. Naturally it grabs my attention, wondering if this is a figment of my imagination, or if it's someone else trying to grab my attention.

Dazed and confused by the sudden shift in actions, the darker colors eventually fade into something lighter; like mixtures of reds, oranges, and greens. All of the colors seems to be hitting me hard in the hopes of returning back to the physical world, I don't know if these colors are based on a magic potion of some sort, or my ability to see auras; all I know is that I'm completely at a loss for words right now by the breathtakingly beautiful scenery that's taking place in front of me right now. The colors seem to blend together, swirling around as if they have a mind of their own. More and more color begins to fill the dark area, and eventually there's so much that the darkness I'm standing on slowly dissolves into a small puddle of crystal clear water; the one thing that I've been warned about not going near.

Unable to take my eyes away from this wonderful, surreal _dream_; for a lack of better words to describe this, I suddenly feel something wet underneath my feet. The cool, refreshing water lightly ripples against my shoes, and since I've never really been near a puddle before, I kneel down towards the endless ground and dip my fingers in the liquid.

It's as if time had stopped for a century, all of the colors begin to stop spontaneously moving around and stand still against the dark canvas they illuminated moments before. The crystal blue water suddenly begins to pool around as if it has a mind of its own; and before I know it I have small water tendrils circling up my fingers that are still in the puddle, and spiraling up my arm. The panic hits me hard, I've never experienced something like this before; mesmerized by the water crawling over my body and engulfing my shoes, slowly creeping up my legs renders me completely mind blown. I don't know what to think,should I move? Should I yell?_Who can even hear me in here?_

The panic paralyzes me completely, and before I know it; the rest of my body feels like its being sucked through a small tube from the water pressure, the numbness slowly retreats from my muscles and my vision is suddenly turning into a blinding white light.

A loud, pulsating ringing triggers my senses once the white light hits me, eventually the light fades into a clear view of a row of hospital beds, a nearby nightstand that contains a ton of candy and toys, with a few cards all addressed to me, and large floor to ceiling stainless steel windows that overlooks the ocean that once held me hostage. The sun looks like it's just about to rise as the room I'm in is darkened by the dawn, illuminated by candles hanging on the walls everywhere. My eyes linger towards a seemingly empty space that holds the presence of someone powerful that's resting at the foot of my bed; and then there's Professor Pouty Pants himself, sitting upright in one of the chairs closest to the wall beside me.

A hastened sigh quickly escapes my lungs the second we make eye contact, and my eyes close tightly for a brief second to gather my senses. Out of everybody that I know in the damn school it just _has_to be him that's sitting in the same room as I am.

The room is filled with silence between the two of us, once my eyes re-open again, there's nothing but sharp exchanges of facial expressions being shared between the two of us. His dark eyes pierce mine with a cold embrace while his arms slowly unravel from across his chest.

"Should I lecture you now, or later when the Headmaster arrives?" His snarky commentary makes me want to throw this pillow underneath my head at him with no remorse.

"By all means, take your time. It shouldn't be a problem since it's early in the morning and we're the only two people in here." The sarcasm drips from every lingering word I spilled, his eyes narrow greatly at me in discomfort but he doesn't dare to add to the conversation.

Instead, he simply pulls himself out of the chair and calmly walks towards the massive windows, trying not to make any more contact with me. He stands silently against the floor and peering out towards the scenery, taking in a deep breath and releasing it nice and slow. The birds that are around this strange area begin to chirp playfully, as the sun begins to rise in the east. The color highlights the clouds in the process vaguely reminds me of the events I had witnessed just moments before waking up.

"You could've gotten killed." Nearly after a moment of silence his words interrupt my thoughts causing my head turns towards his direction, questioning him greatly as he also faces towards me.

"What do you mean? It was just a cliff side; the worst that could've happened was that I'd break mostly every bone in my body-"

Before he could respond, the massive Oak doors that lead into the depths of this ever ending place opens widely, Dumbledore himself paces his way towards the two of us by himself. He walks with a bundle of knowledge in every step he takes, not to mention his aura isn't even visible at all; it's like he turned it off, or has hidden it very well under the years of experience.

"Ah, Severus I trust that Nala has made a full recovery?" His eyes have a certain twinkle followed by a friendly smile as he approaches my bedside and calmly gaze towards the sour Professor.

"Right as rain." He mumbles under his breath in a monotone voice, followed by the swift motions of his dark robe swaying about in the still air as he approaches my bedside as well, with a calm yet cold expression on his face.

"Very good, very good. Now, I'm sure you have a ton of questions about your fall, Nala. Please, ask away." His kind voice portrays exactly what his aura would've given off to me if I could see it; kindness and dedication. Snape just shifts his eyes towards the Headmaster cautiously for a second, shortly returning his gaze back to me.

The events all fly by pretty quickly again, surely he's a busy man and wouldn't be interested in whoever it was that flung me off; for all I know it could've been a spirit or something with that much power.

"Who brought me here, how long was I out for, why was I seeing a swirl of colors before I woke up, and what-" the words come rushing out of my mouth like a broken faucet, Dumbledore chuckles softly, raising his hand to cut me off from my barrage of questions.

"Slow down my child, everything will be answered in time. As for who brought you here it was one of my Professors; Severus to be exact." Dumbledore glances at him for a split second, Snape's eyes pierce mine once again with a simple nod, acknowledging the fact that he got me out of the water somehow.

I sit there completely dumbfounded, how the _Hell_ did he find me of all people? I guess it would help if I knew how long I was out for, who knows; maybe I was under water for a couple hours before someone noticed. But that path towards the cliff is overgrown quite a bit, something doesn't add up.

"You were out for quite a long time; a few days to be exact. I was terribly worried that you wouldn't find your way back to us; but you managed to." He adds a soft smile, turning towards the nightstand and grabbing a cup of full water, handing it to me carefully.

"I know, it's the irony of this predicament; but you have to stay hydrated especially after being out for so long." His cold fingers graze against mine as I reach for the cup, silently sarcastically laughing to myself inside my head as I tilt the cup to my lips. Snape stands there motionless beside the Headmaster, occasionally drifting his attention towards the open door.

"Now, as for the colors I have no clue what could have conjured that up; perhaps you can read auras?"

The color instantly drains from my face, I haven't told anyone about that; even the twins. Uncomfortably I fidget around a little underneath the thin blankets, while Snape's attention is immediately shoots back towards the two of us.

"Yeah, it's a, it's a talent of mine." I stumble a little on my words while admitting to his assumption. Dumbledore smiles once again, taking the glass from my unsteady fingers and places it back on the small table.

"There's nothing to worry about, everybody who walks through those main doors brings a certain something with them." His eyes linger over the collection of stuff I have surrounding the glass on the table.

"That's quite a lot of things you have, I'm glad so many people show their caring nature during a time like this." His attention turns sharply towards me after a few more seconds of pondering about. Snape seems to be eerily silent around him, considering he was more _talkative_ before Dumbledore showed up. I find it strange, and intriguing at the same time.

"Now that the questions are simply out of the way, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but seeing as you didn't attend any of your classes before this incident happened, I took the time to figure out a simple solution for you." Even when he's bringing down the bad news he still has his kind side attached. My eyes drop down to my lap, avoiding both of theirs resistant contact and not really responding to his statement considering it's right. Dumbledore opens his mouth to finish his speech, seeing as neither of us have any input on it either.

"Since your marks are outstandingly high in the majority if your courses, I've allowed most of it to slide." Snape's expression tightens a bit at the words of the Headmaster, almost as if he's astonished by the amount of slack I'm being given.

"However, your Potions class mark is dangerously low and missing a few days afterwards certainly doesn't help; I've assigned you to spend most of your free time with the help of your Professor."

My heart drops, along with my hopes and dreams of spending time roaming about the castle. Not to mention I feel a spark of sensation trickles around the huge room. I already know who I'm paired with and quite honestly I'm beginning to wish that I wasn't saved from my free fall. Anything would be better than being taught one on one with _him._

Clearly this is a surprise to Pouty Pants over there as well, considering his stone hard facial expressions are crumbling apart and revealing a confused, yet calmer side of him.

"At the end of your last class you are to report back down into the Potions class and spend a couple of hours each day until you are caught up. Keep in mind that each course lasts for about half the day."  
I can tell from the look in his eye that he doesn't want to punish me after a tremendous accident, but rules are rules.

"I will, no matter how long it takes." I meet his twinkling gaze with my cowardly one, followed by shooting a sharp glare towards the _talkative_one standing silently beside the Headmaster.

"Very well. You shall start later on today as planned. Our nurse will be here shortly and she'll stop by to give me the okay signal. Farewell, Nala." He motions Snape discreetly to follow him out as they both turn swiftly and begin heading towards the doors.

"Oh, I almost forgot." Quickly Dumbledore scurries over towards the table that contains all of my little gifts and places down a small card with detailed designs threaded with golden thread and fragile looking none the less.

"_Now_ we can leave." He flashes me a quick smile before turning away without giving me a chance to say thank you.

After the both of them leave, I muster all of my strength to pull myself up and admire the stash I've record while being unconscious. I have a load of unusual chocolates and candies definitely from the twins, a stuffed lion from someone who clearly has a sense of humor, and three cards both with extremely well designed images on the front of them. Curiosity gets the best of me and I pick up all three of the cards and places them down in my lap. I carefully open one of them that has a detailed sketch of those Patronus candies that the twins had invented and smile a little, reliving the memory of them trying to make me smile.

_**I can't believe you didn't invite us to tag along! How rude of you.**___  
_**Fred saw the stuffed lion during our shopping and automatically thought if you so we couldn't resist,**_  
_**Get well soon darling,**_

_**-much love, Fred and George.**_

I can't help but grin like an idiot, I knew those two would be the ones to do that sooner or later. My eyes gaze up towards the window, noticing the sun is fully visible and lighting up the huge room. My fingers linger over the card that Dumbledore had left moments ago, the cover just shows thin golden thread spiraled around in difficult looking designs and patterns on a flimsy blue material that looks almost as old as this school.

_**I apologize for not having a formal introduction, may your soul find a way back.**_

_**-Albus Dumbledore**_

The sweet simple message gives me instant hope for liking this school after all. Back at my old one you were lucky if someone even noticed something terrible has happened; I guess that doesn't say much about me but it was true. And lastly the third card that has an extremely detailed sketch of a lovely sparrow sitting on a tree branch, the pencil marking are still fresh as if it was just recently finished.

_**Do not miss my class ever again under any circumstances what so ever. Do I make myself clear?**_

_**-Severus Snape**_


	6. The pouncing lion

Ever since I woke up I've been struggling to determine if I should even still be here after everything that has happened. During Transfiguration period I couldn't help but let my mind drift towards my mother and how when I was younger she would show me how to hide if anything serious were to happen, like a break in, or just a simple threat that could easily happen to anyone. She never trusted anyone; it was just me and her up until now, so she taught me how to transform myself into a simple, small animal, and it took me nearly years of trying to get it perfect. The reasoning as to _why_ she started teaching me Human Transfiguration is beyond me; but I think it lies somewhere in my interests of courses, considering I excelled in Human Biology for my age and I grasped the concepts of biological structures fairly quickly. Even from time to time I fumble with it, I guess it was her defense mechanism back then, and based on what McGonagall said during one of the first days was that any Human Transfiguration committed by first years would result in an automatic expulsion so I think I'll keep my tips and tricks hidden. Even despite my age, they still mixed me in among the first years

My feet quietly tap against the granite tiles as the other students hustle on past me, talking to their friends, or just in a hurry to get back to their dorms and do what ever they feel like since it was just our last class for the day. I watch as the cluster of Gryffindors quietly chatter among themselves as they meet up with a few Hufflepuff students and begin their way outside towards the Gardens, and the Ravenclaws seem to be clumped together in pairs of two. Oddly enough I haven't seen much of the Slytherins floating around behind, and judging by the quick glances and glares I'm receiving from the others, I can only assume that my House is at fault here.

Niya weaves between my legs with each step I take as she continues to keep up her pace with me, content at what she's doing and quietly watching me in case I try to take off again like the last time. She grumbles a little at something black and tiny, squiggling around on the shiny floor as she takes a few extra steps and pounces on the tiny critter. A loud squishing noise can be heard and she removes her paw from the crime scene and edges back towards the comfort of my presence after satisfying her urges.

The more I think about it, the more I wonder if she knew she was going to die the day I was sent here; she was so strange during the drive from the airport to London, she was always glancing behind her, or having her eyes peeled to the sky. At one point she took us out of the cab halfway through because she didn't like the vibe the driver was giving her and we ended up walking for over an hour towards the station.

Eventually the massive hallway clears out with a few straggling students that either stop by and gaze around at the structure, or they're just waiting for some of their friends to appear from their classes. Things are definitely strange, I've never really had the chance to adjust to the feeling of a new school since I grew up with everybody back at my old one; we never moved at all, so I was never used to being the outcast, but that doesn't seem to phase me completely, I like the quiet and the break from constantly people knowing who I am, plus they seem to be content about Harry, and crowding him every chance he gets, leaving me to retreat back to the safety of my single dorm.

"Alone again, I see."

Eventually I peel my eyes from the floor and gaze up towards one of the staircases, noticing one of the twins right away without his other half, he flashes a quick smile at me and hurries down towards the main floor I'm on. His cheerful aura and vibrant hue give off a sense of warmth and right away I know it's Fred, linking his arm with mine and carrying me off down in the opposite direction of where I'm supposed to go.

"Um, I think you're missing someone." I point out the obvious, while he glances towards the opposite side of him and smirks, Niya slinks behind us a little instead of right next to my feet as she usually is, following closely behind my heels and as quiet as she can.

"Yeah, he told me to run off without him and that he'd catch up; he didn't finish the small test we had in Muggle Studies. By the way, what are tablets used for? That one stumped me a little bit." He casually makes small talk, being unable to just play off of words from his brother and all. He does generally seem serious about the question though, I didn't even think they had a class like that.

I can't help but feel a small smile twitch across my face, I guess growing up in a different world has its advantages and disadvantages. But to be fair, I've learned not to just assume that if you look human and act human that you automatically know what the internet is, some things are still the same as they were back when I was in the _Muggle World_as they call it, but things here are highly strange, if not completely foreign to me.

"It's like a small computer, It's kind of hard to explain it to someone who doesn't know the basics yet." I simply joke, all though it is kind of true; considering tablets have many different functions alone.

"Wow, a little harsh aren't we? You do belong in Slytherin." He plays along, un-linking his arm from mine and slowing down his pace as we walk down towards the end of the hall together, the silence of the students who begin to disappear towards other sections of the castle stirs around between the both of us, whereas his cheerful aura simmers down a little after the initial contact.

"Bite me, Gryffindork." I roll my eyes with a sarcastic tone, he grins from ear to ear with a genuine gleam in his eyes and he seems overall pretty impressed.

"That was pretty good, are you doing anything later on today?" We both stop dead in our tracks as he holds my eye contact with his, asking such an unusual question like that. Normally they wouldn't care what I'm doing and just drag me away without any second thoughts, so this strikes a little bit of confusion into the mix.

"Not exactly, I'm supposed to go back to the dungeons and work on my Potions-" Fred cuts me off with a stifled laughter. I already know why too; considering the two of them never shut up about it.

"Planning a marriage with your lover are we? Anyways, we have something absolutely stunning to show you later if you're up for it." He fights the urge to break out into a fit of laughter, like I said, usually every time we're together we almost always run into the guy who practically lives in the dungeons; I'm actually quite surprised that he hasn't emerged from the depths to come find me yet.

"You wish, I only met the guy once; and sure, I'll let you know when I'm free." Sarcastically we both chuckle together, his chocolate eyes pierce mine with a smile as he steps off to the side, seeing his brother approaching us from the staircase from the corner of his eye, knowing that it's time to leave and head off to go cause chaos somewhere else.

"I wouldn't want to distract you from your true love, Nala. We'll see you later." Fred pats me on the back with a bit of sympathy towards the whole idea of me and Snape, and heads off towards his twin, who gives me a hearty wave with a gleaming smile plastered onto his face. The two of them begin to head off in the opposite direction chattering away about what their plan is I assume, I will admit they have certainly caught my attention; I really, _really_ want to know what they want to show me, my curiosity is clearly getting the best of me right now.

Niya nimbly meows after they leave, and returns back to sniffing the cold floor as I approach one of the narrow staircases that leads down towards the dungeons. The damp musky smell hits me strongly while I carefully begin to head down the steps with ease, Niya skitters down the stone steps without any pauses until she hits the bottom floor, sitting down with her tail twitching slightly and impatiently as she waits for me to reach the bottom.

I'm not really looking forward to spending literally half of my day with someone who slaves away from human contact, but I'll have to swallow my pride and give him a chance as Dumbledore requested for me to do so this morning. After all; how bad can it possibly be? Maybe I'll finish quicker and actually get the hang of potion making.

I approach the stained, dark wooden door that has chains surrounding it and such a wonderful vibe emitting from the room. I'm sadly all too familiar with this door as I see it every second day when I have Potions class, Niya hesitantly nudges the door with her face, pushing it wide open and slips inside with her quiet paws scampering across the floor and into the empty, abandoned classroom.

I follow her motions, and I end up in the back of the Potions room, that has a table of mixing ingredients, and shelves upon shelves of ancient books, glass jars filled with who knows what, labeled with bizarre names such as Belladonna, Ephedra, Hawthorn, Dragon's Tears, Cat Spit; basically anything and everything, and I do mean _everything_. Despite the unusual labels and ingredients, there's a few cauldrons kicking around between each huge table and the place is literally covered in cobwebs. There's absolutely no light in here other than the candles in brass holders along the walls, but other than that it's just musky, old air circulating through from the open door.

And there he sits, hunched over his desk that has loose papers scattered around and a few pieces of crumpled paper along the floor among some puddles from rain leakages I'm assuming, the floor has a few wet spots but to be fair anywhere in the dungeons usually has a few leaks here and there. His black hair hangs all around him in a matter of concentration while I spot Niya sitting in front of his desk, gazing up at the loose papers as if she plans on pouncing on them and causing mischief.

"There you are, Lamia. I was beginning to think that you didn't like me." He doesn't break his concentration from scribbling down words on one of the papers as the sarcasm seems through his teeth, eventually he sets his pencil down against the old, crooked table and raises his head, piercing his gaze into my eyes with a burning hatred of something by the hues of color surrounding him.

"Count your blessings, I'm definitely _not_ one of them." I sneer a little, placing down my bag on one of the solid tables. The classroom seems more creepy when it's empty, especially with empty cages hanging from the ceiling in some parts of the corner, nearest to the closet which I'm assuming has more ingredients. It makes me wonder if it was used for decorations or if there were actually alive things living inside of them at one point, either way; I haven't noticed the creepiness level when I'm surrounded by other people.

"Your snarky remarks won't be tolerated here, I'm sure it was dealt with moderately where you have come from, but I will not stand for it." He puts his serious teaching face on and immediately rises from his chair, still piercing my eyes with his dark cold ones in the process as he slowly strolls along the dirty floor towards one of the empty tables that has my bag on it, while carrying a dirty red book that appears to be falling apart at the seams.

"I guess we're off to a _great_ start then, aren't we?" I mumble the words under my breath, clearly he heard them as he's a few feet in front of me.

"Now, I've offered my time to help you, so we are going to start off with something fairly simple, the Forgetfulness Potion." He ignores my comment, his fingers carefully open the ancient book that he placed down in front of us while the pages reveal scratchy handwriting and faded images of step by step instructions to create this perfectly.

My eyes narrow greatly at the book he's holding as he gently sets it down against the table in front of me. I don't know how this school system works at all, but by all means this looks kind of hard for first years; especially sheltered ones, just what kind of game is he playing here? Does he think I can mentally handle this task at hand or something? I was never good at anything chemical based, and judging from my _'Muggle'_ view on everything, this is eerily similar to chemistry; which I _gracefully_failed with a charming 4. Out of 100.

The book reeks of mold, and the crisp brown pages are stained with who knows what. Out of all of the old books in here why did he have to choose the most disgusting one; not to mention it's extremely hard to even read the faded writing in here from whoever printed this.

"Read the instructions, I will gather the necessary ingredients." He casually drifts away towards one of the shelves near the back room, his dark robe flutters about from the motions of his arms reaching upwards towards the middle shelf. I can't quite put my finger on it, but_I just know_ I know him from somewhere, and I simply can't help myself but ponder how I'd know this man. It's impossible that he'd be a family friend; my mother hated people more than_I_do.

I haven't even paid attention to the book, my eyes are either plastered onto him trying to figure out who he is, or they're floating around the room, gazing at Niya who's now laying on top of all of his sheets on his desk and batting at the cord for his lamp; wait, _are you fucking kidding me?_And the empty, eerie classroom that sends shivers down my spine.

The sound of glass clattering together reels my attention back towards the sour Professor, he picks up a small vial from one of the back shelves without managing to destroy everything else in the process. I will admit, I am impressed because if that were me doing that; the whole shelf would be down and I'd probably be murdered and shoved in test tubes to be used for future recipes.

His back turns toward the shelf as he carefully makes his way towards me, quickly my eyes skim along the words as if I understand any of this whatsoever; that and trying to act as if I had my eyes burned into this book, pretending that I have everything under control. Chemical science wasn't really my thing at all so I don't know how in the Hell I'm going to get through this, I just hope I don't explode anything in the process.

I can tell he's impatient, none the less his burning aura gives it off that he's severely pissed off about something. And I think he knows that I didn't even glance at the book, given the fact that I can hear a loud, dreary sigh escape his lungs as he approaches the table.

"There are two parts to this, waiting is crucial and no shortcuts will be tolerated." He places the small amount of ingredients on the table, there's a small vial of crystal clear liquid, a bunch of white looking flowers scrunched up and tired together with a very thin leather string, and a jar of strange looking white-ish berries tied shut with a ribbon and floating inside of some strange liquid. He crosses his arms in a stern manner, watching me gaze at the ingredients he had brought back to the table with a completely dumbfounded expression on my face.

I can almost feel myself burning up under the pressure, I get that he's here to help me and all; but I greatly despise this man with a very strong burning passion. Even if I give him the hint that I'd need help, he'd get all smug-like and rub it in my face subtly every chance he gets, I'm not ready to lose my dignity to someone like him; well, yet at least.

My eyes jump back to the decaying book, the writing is vague, and very faint but none the less I can kind of make out the words; _**Add two drops of Lethe River Water to your cauldron**_ the words are scarcely noticeable and very faded to the point of not understanding any of this at all from this ancient book. Since he only brought back one vial of clear liquid I'll take a guess on it being the water I need.

My fingers slowly reach for the vial, trembling a little with the anxiety of being wrong while his eyes carefully watch my movements. The hue instantly fades into nothing and once again I'm left in the dark on knowing what this man's true emotions are.

"Two drops." He coldly responds, I'll always be sick of his dull, dreary voice. If he's allowed to be an asshole then so am I.

"Cool." Trying to be calm about it, I brush it off, he stands there watching carefully as I add two drops to the cauldron that's off to the side of the both of us. The water sizzles against the base water that's already inside of the pot, there's a few nearby matches on one of the tables so I'm assuming I'll have to heat up the water at some point. Pleased with myself for not messing anything up, I shift my eyes upwards while moving back to my original spot; they instantly lock with his, sending a horrible chill down my spine along with a familiar nostalgic feeling to it.

Quickly I send my eyes downwards at the sketchy book, reading the next line; _**gently heat for twenty seconds.**___How the Hell do you gently heat something, it's heat; it does whatever it wants to do by itself, I should know; that's all I'm good at is destruction.

I know he didn't bring any matches on purpose, the smug look on his face says so, anyways. Maybe he wants me to use another way to heat the massive pot; considering he must know what I'm capable of doing by now, given the fact that he supposedly saved me and all. Speaking of which, I wonder why he's an arrogant prick towards me around other people; but so far he hasn't said anything rude yet. Not to mention the little card he left me, kind gesture but uncalled for none the less.

I slip my hand inside of my robe and pull out the glistening oak wand my mother gave me moments before her demise, if I could conjure fire from a young age with this _'twig'_ then surely I can_gently_bullshit my way into heating the pot. I hover over the cauldron with his dark eyes watching me like a silent hawk, the corner of his lip twitches a little; as if he's about to speak.

It doesn't even give me a chance to do anything, right then and there the cauldron heats by itself at a calming temperature as if I commanded it. It weaves between being stone cold and blistering hot with just a pure thought alone, without even thinking I raise my other hand above the now stone cold cauldron and almost instantly the coals underneath ignite with a burning power that churns and crackles against the cauldron.

He appears to be speeches, watching me silently form flames from nothing but my fingertips and using my mind as fuel. The flames crackle and glisten inside of my widen eyes as I smile brightly, proud of myself for conjuring up fire for the first, legit time. Never mind the fact that it's probably against the rules to do this; but to be fair he didn't give me another choice.

I twitch my fingers a little, trying to lower the temperature before _someone_ complains about it, eventually it gently forms bubbles as I keep track of the seconds that fly by inside of my head. Clearly the Professor's shocked at how instant it was, and judging from the smug look on his face he half expected me to struggle with anything that says heat in it, little does _he_know.

Once I hit the twenty second mark, I instantly shut off the concentration that was automatically signaled from my mind to the pot, I lower my hand and flash a shit eating grin at the Professor who just stares blankly at the cauldron, re-remembering what he had just witnessed. My eyes strike the faded page reveling the next step; _**Add two Valerian sprigs to your cauldron.**_

I don't really know what any of these herbs are called, I'm used to simple ones like garlic; if that's even a herb, and parsley for crying out loud. I was never big on gardening, and I sure as Hell barely know what any of this shit even is. But if I guessed right on the vial of water then surely I can guess right again; since there's only three ingredients here to begin with.

Judging by my intentions, the ingredient the book wants me to use clearly consists of the white bunched flower-looking thing Pouty Pants brought back to the table, all though I'm not quite sure of it; I'm sure he'd gladly tell me I'm wrong otherwise if it's not right. What else do I really have to lose at this point? I reach for the Valerian; I assume anyways, picking off the buds and bunching together however many it says to add; dumping them into the bubbly water and a flash of dark green smoke waifs around the decaying air. Great, that has to be a good sign; right?

The sudden smoke startles Niya, causing her to fall off of the desk taking several papers with her, Snape doesn't even budge at the fact that she single handedly destroyed his desk, instead he's too mesmerized by the pillaring green smoke emitting from the brewing cauldron. I sigh of relief quickly escapes my lungs, I guess part two's coming up next so that leaves about forty minutes to think about nothing and waste away down in here with this freak. I glance briefly over towards the man standing silently close to the cauldron with a small, faint smile forming across his lips.

"Now, stir three times clockwise and then wait roughly forty minutes for the next step." He finishes the rest of the instructions off by memory as he nods towards one of the ladles he has lying on the wooden table. Judging by his tone and choice of words I can tell he's impressed, let alone finally satisfied with me doing something right in his class, other than just wasting time doodling in the book he gave us to use for this semester.

I reach for the ladle and begin to stick it inside of the boiling pot, I can feel the heat instantly stating to warm up with just being near me, this could be a very bad thing too; I didn't know I had this connection with fire, and I know the properties of what it's capable of doing; and that's destroying things. I can feel the liquid pooling inside of the scoop, remembering where I started I begin to slowly swirl the ladle around in three motions all clockwise, once I reach the spot where I start I gently lift the ladle and empty out the rest of the liquid back inside of the pot and cautiously turn towards the Professor, holding the ladle out towards him.

He grasps for the ladle and shakes it off before setting it down on his desk up at the front of the room, even after noticing Niya's mess he still doesn't really care as much as I thought he would; instead, he simply gathers a few papers and stares hesitantly towards me. I finally calm down after a few minutes of being silently judged by this guy, pleased with my work I take a seat beside the pot and watch it boil, letting my mind drift off to wherever it wants to by this point; Hell I'd say I earned it.

"I'm deeply impressed, I assumed you would find a way to screw up but you pulled through; just like Tabitha would-"

My eyes widen at the mention of my mother's name. How the_fuck_ does he know her, and he never bothered to tell me anything until letting it slip from his mouth? The color drains from my face, I feel sick to my stomach almost, hearing _her_ name escape _his_lips is what intensifies the chill in the air. I feel my fingers curl up angrily, the tears begin to form in the corners of my eyes as I slowly lift my head and meet his gaze with a burning response. I can tell he didn't mean to let the words slip, as he seems just as shocked as I was when I heard him.

"How did you know her, you know I've been looking for answers since I've gotten here." The words leak with venom, my eyes return back to the table in the now quiet room, Niya bolts towards the wooden door, sitting down carefully and watching my motions as if I'm going to tear right into him. The colors of rage and sadness wash over me, I can see the vivid outline of the shades of red vibrating off of my body almost, once again I muster all of my strength just to meet his eye contact out of respect, and right then he knows what he did.

"I can explain, but I can only explain enough to not cause any friction between the matter." He calmly approaches me with a fearful aura blistering through the dark lock he shackled it with. Blinded by rage I stand to my feet and grab my bag, glaring into his soul with a burning desire to set this place ablaze. So much for working on part two of the damn recipe.

I've been asking around for the first couple of days upon arriving here, nobody had any clue to who I was talking about; at first I went towards the rest of the Professors that teach here and know me as a familiar face, when they had no idea what I was talking about I asked McGonagall, her face was puzzled and confused as to why I would ask about her, and all she told me was that my mother was a Ravenclaw and one of the school's best students. She basically threw me to the Headmaster, and I asked him if he knew anything about her considering something's up; and he told me he didn't know why I would be interested in it. My mother never even _hinted_ at this place existing, she's been hiding those letters for six years for crying out loud, and if that's the case then how come they even let me set foot in this school if I'm so late for the deadline? I read the letter when I got it, they said _no exceptions_ whatsoever, so _why the fuck am I here?_

The calm before the storm, I exhale my breath with a sharp pain forming inside of my chest, I feel like my entire world is collapsing, that's all I had was her, she refused to let anybody else near me; even her own mother; my grandmother couldn't even visit me. The words fumble, they toss and turn inside of my raging mind, finding a path of their own and will soon be spilling through my mouth any moment now, I can feel the lion ready to pounce; and it feels damn good to let that beast loose.

"She was _everything_ to me. I asked, I _pleaded_ with Dumbledore if he knew anything about what happened to her or if _anybody_ knew_anything_. And he played dumb with me, and then _you_of all _fucking_people, open your mouth and mention her name to me. I _will_ find my answer, and none of you will get in my way."

Stunned and shocked, the Professor just stands there melted to the ground almost, the coals underneath the cauldron are a fierce flame now that towers over the entire project and touches the stone ceiling above, everything that I was working on for my grade was incinerated by the intense heat that lightens up this gloomy atmosphere. The flames are fueled by my emotions, I've known that for quite some time after spending countless hours alone in my room back at home, left to rot in my own thoughts and to deal with everything a normal life could throw, and then suddenly I'm whisked away to this place and completely broken apart by losing the one thing that ever mattered to me.

I turn sharply around, Niya's already gone and probably bolted all the way back to the dorm by now as I leave the intensely burning hot room that was once bitterly cold. As I glaze by the damp and dark halls, with each torch I pass that's mounted firmly on the wall; the flame skyrockets towards the ceiling with a fiery passion, burning intensely until I pass and then it simmers back down to the normal height. I instantly dash up the steps I was so careful coming down and make my way back to the dorm for an early night, with my emotions this high I could risk burning the whole place down; as tempting as it sounds I wouldn't want to do that, but after re-awakening this flawed curse, I just think I'll never have control over it.


	7. Something's amiss

The fresh tears drip furiously down my cheeks, staining my black robe and dropping down to the floor below as I skitter up the ancient staircase in the Slytherin Common room towards my safety net hidden away at the back of the dormitories. After climbing so many stairs you'd think to collapse instantly at the first sight of a couch or some place comfy, but I just breeze right by the lounge.

There's not really anybody here in the Common room, usually Draco and his minions are lounging about eating sweets and useless sugar on one of the couches, but today just seems to be getting a little better since I haven't run into him yet. It's a good thing too; I wouldn't know what I would do at this rate. I fumble a little with my door lock, since magic's really big here it's all about waving your wand over the door handle to open it correctly, nobody else can break in because your wands are linked to each student's door, I'm still learning. Eventually I get in after a few tries, my mind continues to race around everything that's happened in an attempt to restore the balance.

After finally giving up hope on figuring out what's going on here regards to why people act so off around me, and trying to solve her death; that asshole drops the bomb on me and expects me to just let it slide. I was told that nobody really knew her, by the _Headmaster_of all people; and one of his Professors knows her name, and the other knew her House.

Once I enter my single room, I slam the door completely shut and lock it completely up with it's several spellbound locks just in case anybody comes in. Unfortunately that also means the twins as well, hopefully I can make it up to them some other day. The dorm room I'm in is full of old junk in regards to the founding House masters centuries ago, I have old Slytherin banners strung up around the place to cover up the crumbling stone, anywhere from centuries ago; up until previous years, as well as antique dressers to keep most of my clothes and gaming consoles. Among the banners I have Slytherin blankets draped around the walls to make this room a little more like home; oddly enough I feel close to the symbol, and the House itself which is highly strange considering I hate just about anyone else that's been placed in here. The twins actually have a little space of their own in here; right against the window I have an old wooden door that only they know how to open; so in the meantime I just have it covered and barricaded with useless ancient chests and old quilts and nobody really questions it; considering it's just us three anyways. I personally never used the door before but they said it's like a long, narrow tunnel that's connected directly to their dorm. They have a few blankets and pillows lying around there, and of course their Gryffindor crested banner also sits in that corner with them. A lot of the times they just want to escape their roommates, I just hope it's not one of those nights tonight.

The tears still flow violently as Niya launches herself up on my bed with me. She rolls around among the quilts as I rub her soft fur considering she's all I have left. My mind keeps being dragged through glass shards trying to remember the event before the train took off, even anything about my normal life seems fucked up in the end. The memories are all blurred and there's unlikely anything I can do to get them back.

"I just don't get it, him of all the people who knew her. Why _him_?" The tears are draining me fairly quickly, Niya meows and nuzzles against my hand, purring up a storm and begging for attention as the words just continue to pour from my mouth.

"I know that McGonagall was the one who told me about her House, but when he said her name, it finally occurred to me..." Even through the violent tears I still manage to hold everything together, I still have bits of my sanity after that small slip up, and I made sure to keep my candles not lit, I'm using the sunlight that filters through my window to still be able to see; as much as I dislike _him_I don't have a say in the matter; I have to pass his class and right now that's the least of my worries.

Niya snuggles up against my long hair, twisting her body along and purring wildly. Words cannot express how much I long for her to be able to talk back to me, even when I transmute into a cat I still can't fully understand her, and quite honestly I'm tempted to do so despite being months since I even practiced it. It's weird to admit that even, I've only successfully done it a few times and even then it doesn't last long for me; maybe mom finally gave in and decided she couldn't teach me everything I needed to know, all though I am quite advanced for my grade level they put me in.

I lie down against the mountain of pillows that's up against the headboard, my eyes grow heavy from the amount of tears I've split in anger, and Niya still purrs gently; curled up in a fluffy calico ball that has a hue of colors radiating from her body.

"I finally realized that everybody knows who_I_am; but I don't know _who_ I am."

Niya instantly jumps to her feet as if she understood my words, naturally this makes me anxious considering the twins could be coming any time soon and if they see me like this; they won't stop until they make me smile, as much as I would want that I'd hate to be a burden to them. She folds her tail gently underneath her paw and starts batting at it like a toy, I should have known that she's just jumpy, and a bit playful after everything that's happened today.

After ranting to a brick wall, _literally,_ and a feline that's just here for moral support; I can't help but wonder how Sevia is doing up in the Owlry, I would have loved to keep her in here considering I'll never have mail from anyone in the Muggle World so I don't see the point in her being up there all alone.

My mind can't help but wonder about the things around me, especially all of my friends back at my old home. If anything I miss them the most, I'd really do anything to return back to Maine and just live life normally, living by the crisp forest, smelling the salty air of the sea, and taking care of all of the magical creatures that mom left behind. I guess it's natural to feel home sick, and to ramble on about how much I miss my old life; but I know things will never be the same.

My eyes drift around my little cubby hole of a room, a few books scattered across the dresser grabs my attention. Despite not really being able to produce a working potion today, I could always actually study and learn about these ingredients and what they're used for, considering I bullshitted my way through today's events. Not to mention, I really need something to distract me after nearly having a meltdown and destroying the dungeons.

I manage to stand to my feet, still a little weary on lighting the candles in here, just in case I set the place on fire. The sun begins to set across the open ocean as I pick up a fairly old book, it's scrappy looking and has loose pages inside; I guess I really am his _favorite_ student since he gave me the shitty one.

On instinct I open the book to reveal the blank pages before the book actually starts. Back at my old school everybody thought it was cool to sign your name in them or draw pictures and doodle around, I guess it was like a thing to do to pass time, oddly enough I expected magical kids to be the same way; but instead I'm greeted with an empty page and _**Property of the Half-Blood Prince**___written inside. Boy, I guess Muggle kids _are_strange after all.

I will admit, the name's pretty catchy, I don't see why Dumbass would give me this book instead of a newer one until my eyes adjusted to the old English vocabulary. I take the piece of junk over towards the window that overlooks the vast ocean, I guess with the remaining light I could at least take a peek at some ingredients and what they're used for; so that way I'm not a total lost cause here.

I take a seat on one of the old small chairs I dug out that I have against a small table perfect for working on, I lay the book flat out on the table and use the light from the window to explore the selection of ingredients. One of the first pages I open to has scratchy handwriting literally everywhere, giving tips on how to do things quickly and tricks to crush ingredients to use to their full value. I guess he's not a dumbass afterall, maybe I am his favorite student.

The pictures in here are by far extremely detailed, they could easily surpass any artist in the Muggle World by far, the faded texture distorts most of the pictures in here but none the less it's all there and the ingredients are listed alphabetically, broken down into a few categories; Herbs, Animals, and Spices. Usually I've never been so hyped to study before; but after dealing with shit classes like math, and science; I'll gladly take the time to learn about D.A.D.A, or Transfiguration; any other course for that matter too.

Just as I'm about to even remotely glance into the index, a swift and civil sound emerges from underneath my door as a folded up piece of paper comes sliding in against the floor. Intrigued and curious, I leave the book open on the index and make my way towards what appears to be a letter of some sort, carefully I open the handwritten letter since I've honestly never received one before and it reveals a familiar elegant font;

_**I apologize for everything, I will tell you what I know. Curfew is in an hour, come down the stairs.**_

Right away I know it's him, I feel a small sense of anger forming but nothing life threatening like earlier today. I don't know if it's some Professor-student unmentioned _code_ or something about entering a student's dorm as a Professor, but he could have just knocked and given me the time of his day while standing outside; I wouldn't have complained. This place is weird.

I toss the paper aside and grab my House robe from one of the bed posts, if he's going to spill some answers then I'll definitely see what's up. Niya grumbles a little from her comfy spot on my bed, she reaches upwards and sprawls out with her paws sticking up in the air, I guess I can leave her here unattended for now; it'll cause less panic knowing that she isn't trapped outside of the dorm.

I have a variety of emotions fluttering about inside of me about this, I could possibly get the answers I've wanted from the beginning, but also a part of me sees this just a tad bit creepy since it's getting late out. I slip outside of my dorm and begin to head down the stone steps, the fireplace down in the Commons room has been lit and Draco himself appears to be passed out in one of the comfy looking chairs. He doesn't seem to be moving anytime soon, as he's completely sprawled out on the furniture.

The flames from the fireplace illuminates the huge space that's decorated from head to toe in Slytherin apparel. There's a fancy old piano that's resting against one of the stone walls furthest away from the tables and couches that are spread out around the fireplace. Quietly I make my way down the cold steps, tying up my House robe as the air grows colder from being confined inside of the dungeons, and halfway submerged underneath the lake that's outside. I have no idea exactly _where_he wants me to meet him, all he said was downstairs.

The second my feet touch the main floor, one of the old wooden doors that's directly placed underneath the massive staircase that separates the gender's rooms opens a tiny crack from being completely shut; and by the looks of it, locked tightly as well. Odd and intrigued by an unknown space, I carefully glance around the room, making sure that it's just Draco and I alone in here before I even bother opening the slightly cracked door. Another part of me has a feeling that this is where_he_is too. The door creaks a little as my fingers grasp the handle to push it open all the way, right away I notice a small, faded light emitting from the far back corner of the room and a huge bookshelf towering over the walls that are clearly filled with more ancient books than any other library I've ever been to. From the corner of my eye I can see the dark figure standing nearby one of the shelves reaching for a book of some sort, and a strangely familiar scent of a dark essence of some sort along with it.

"Shut the door, quickly." Snape turns towards me while carrying a large dusty brown book and setting it down on one of his tables. Instantly I do what he says and shut the door behind me carefully, trying not to wake up Draco in the process all while questioning the finicky behaviors of this strange man who apparently lives underneath the staircase; how ironic on Harry's behalf. A whirl of emotion tumbles around inside of me, along with several questions as to why he wanted me down here out of all of the places to be.

"Why exactly did you drag me down here, you could have just told me upstairs." My hostile eye contact never breaks his, along with my back that's leaning against the door. The main question that has been bugging me since I even received the note from him, usually you'd just text, or call. I'm not used to any of this, and I don't think I'll ever be.

His eyes darken a little bit, glancing around the candle lit cozy large room, he has a large desk that's shoved up against a large brass lined window that overlooks the shimmering lake, there's a huge bookshelf that's almost up to the ceiling full of ancient things, books are near the bottom of the shelf while a globe of some sort spins slowly by itself, followed by several other objects that I really can't explain. There's a dark, antique rug lining the stone floor and huge open space followed by several other bookshelves full of books next to a handful of floating candles and a large couch covered in a blanket. There's two other doors beside one of the bookshelves that are closed tightly, judging that he lives here I'm assuming one of the doors is to the master bedroom, this place is really detailed and it makes me wonder what the other House's master rooms look like.

"I couldn't risk being overheard by anybody." He paces around quietly, the hue reveals the dark colors mixing together to form a dark purple, highlighted with dark blue that festers around him before vanishing away after a few seconds.

Confused, I still linger around by the door; due to this being extremely creepy. He eventually draws a long sigh and waves me towards the couch indicating that this is going to be a long story. Reluctantly I agree, and force my stiff legs towards the couch that's massive and could easily fit four people. He sits down on the other end of the couch near the small table, and picks up one of the books from the small pile he has on it. It's a faded green book outlined in silver thread that reveals the Slytherin crest on the cover, he places it down between the both of us and holds my gaze with his cold one.

"Tabitha went to school with me, she was the Ravenclaw that everybody knew but she was so closed off that she spent most of her time wandering around the castle and didn't bother with any living contact." His eyes gaze down once again towards the book, flipping through some of the pages and eventually stopping on the Ravenclaw House graduate section. All of the pictures are moving slightly, like a perfectly looped gif without any flaws whatsoever. My eyes scan down the rows of moving photos and eventually I stumble across my mother's. Her long black hair is a bit ruffled at the top, whereas her emerald green eyes shine brightly though illuminating her smile. I can't believe that she looks so much like me when she was around my age almost; I'm stunned actually.

"She was into dark magic and so was I. I had my own personal reasons, but hers was solely based on her believing that she could somewhat tame the beast so to speak, and that's how I knew her up until the unfortunate event happened." His cold, dull voice still irritates me a little, even when he's trying to show any kind of emotion it's always that monotone voice that gets him in the end. Eventually I peel my eyes away from the pictures and shyly meet his, I have so many questions relating to her death; as to who did it and why they did it. Not to mention this is actually the most information I've ever gotten so far, she thought she could tame the dark magic and I'm guessing it ended up consuming her in the process.

Snape closes the book carefully, resting his hand on the crest that's outlined in thread on the front as if he's stuck in his memories once again, before he places the book down on the small table beside him.

"What happened next?" My voice is now quiet and almost timid, lost in the world of how my mother was almost on the verge of being insane. He only said a few things, and I know he's just barely scratching the surface.

"I knew when to stop, she however; didn't. She wasn't reckless per say with her ability to conjure up anything and cause havoc among anybody who even bothered her; but she did break one of the small rules we have." He looks almost like he's regretting the fact that he's even telling me, since it's clear to me that everybody here is trying their best to keep me away from the truth. He takes in a deep breath and finishes the rest of what he was going to say.

"She tampered with the past, she went back a little too far and met someone who she regrets-" A loud shattering noise catches both of us off guard, instantly he jumps to his feet with his wand in his hand as he glaces back towards me with a bit of fear lingering around in his eyes.

My mind races a little bit, a lot of things go bump in the night especially in this old castle, but that sounded violent and vicious. I guess Snape said enough to anger some sort of paranormal force out there.

"You need to leave, now." He carefully walks towards the door that leads into the Common room and opens it just a crack, his gaze is intensified a little as he shuts the door and turns around, facing towards me who was just about to stand up and walk out through the main door with a confused expression plastered on my face.

"It's not safe, I have a hidden passage that will take you directly to one of the abandoned dorm rooms that we use for storage now, you should know how to get back from there." He whispers a certain spell towards the door he just opened before he turns quickly on his feet towards a blank wall that looks normal none the less. Carefully I follow him towards the wall, standing right beside him and almost feeling his emotions swirl around without even seeing them. It's odd, when he's blocking out his color hue I can still feel them the closer I stand beside him, maybe that's how I can understand the others who turn theirs off; I guess I don't need to be able to see it when I can just feel it instead.

Surprised by the emotions I'm feeling from him that's radiating off of him, I can't help but try to separate most of them; fear is definitely one of the top ones that's consuming me on his behalf, but there's also a few pleasant ones as well that intrigue me even more. He taps the tip of his wand in a strange pattern on the bricks and slowly but surely they begin to dissolve inside the remaining wall and show a dark narrow path, something similar to what the twins have told me about. If anything, there's a few torches that are lit in the brass holders above, down at the end appears to be an old door covered in cobwebs so I guess this hasn't been used in forever.

"Go through and you'll reach the storage room, from there it should be easy." He doesn't even give me a chance to even thank him, he just whisks up the bricks with a flick of his wand and instantly they barricade me inside this tunnel. Without any thought to it, I begin to slowly move my way down this hidden corridor that's narrow, eventually I reach the abandoned door and reach for the handle, it turns with a lot of effort due to being stuck after such a long time, and before I know it the door creaks open very loudly and reveals a huge room piled in old junk from previous years.

I don't really have the time to glance around, I quickly make my way towards one of the doors that leads to the dorm rooms and I start mimicking the unlock spell that everybody has so they can instantly reach their dorms without having to crawl through everybody's rooms. The door clicks and opens quietly by itself and reveals my room, and Niya sitting on the edge of the bed with wide eyes and her tail flicking madly.

I shut the door behind me and turn around towards the rest of my bed; where I'm greeted with Fred who's once again twinless and stretched out on my bed; having my old Gameboy by his side and the note that Snape left me before I left. Mocking the writing and read it out loud to me before flashing me a quick smirk.

"How cute, he summoned you downstairs to meet him before curfew." Fred taunts with a glint of sarcasm in his words, I roll my eyes at him and reach over, taking the note from him and tossing it to the floor.

"It was nothing major, he just wanted to discuss what happened after I nearly destroyed his classroom." I semi lie a bit, knowing that if Fred finds out about my mother he'd be interested in it too.

"Right, news travels fast; everybody was talking about it earlier, some people are even terrified of you." He sits up on my comfy bed and gently strokes Niya's fur, she purrs slightly before resenting him and pouncing off the bed and into one of the clothes piles I have lying around in the corner where she curled up in a ball and simply falls asleep. People are terrified of me now? That's _exactly_ what I wanted, great. I guess it's better than them having no reason to hate me, might as well make them terrified of me.

"Oh, it's better than not having a reason to hate me." I laugh a little, Fred smiles as well, radiating a nice yellow hue around him. The room is dark due to the only source of light I had was from my window when the sun was up, and I was too terrified to light any candles in case my anger got the best of me, but I guess Fred took it upon himself to light a couple near the window so that way half of the room is illuminated by the flames flickering against the walls.

"I know what'll cheer you up; it always works for me, so I'll be happy to show you." He flashes me a grin, reaching into his pocket for his wand and he instantly starts whisking it around, forming a hazy, light blue glow that takes the shape of a Hyena that prances around the room and lighting up the dark space since I didn't light any candles before leaving. My eyes widen in amazement, curious to know what exactly it is that he's doing, once the image vanishes he sits back down on the bed and tosses me my wand that I had left on the table. I catch it quickly, staring at the craftsmanship on the wand for a quick second before returning my attention to Fred.

"Now you try, it's simple really; think of a memory that makes you happy, and either say _'Expecto Patronum'_ out loud or in your head, since it'll be your first time you might not get it right away-"

He was cut off by bright blue hazy light emitting from the tip of my wand, the memory I chose to use was of my mother, during the plane ride over here to London, I didn't like it one bit; we were flying over the ocean and I was just not having a good time, she kept drawing sketches of all of the animals we'd left back home in the forest and gave them all names while creating a black ink trail with her fingers in the air, spelling out words like _'I love you'_and _'Smile, Nala.'_due to my fear of deep water. She only did it when nobody else was looking, and kept it small enough for only us to see.

The hazy light eventually forms into a fierce lioness, roaring without making any sound, and standing tall and mighty throughout the air. Fred giggles a little to himself, gazing up at the magnificent beast that locks eyes with me, almost staring into my soul as it wisps away and fades into the dark, barely lit room.

"I should have known it would've been the lion, I guess those chocolates _are_ charmed perfectly." He glances around the room, noticing the stuffed lion they bought me was among the pillows on my bed, followed by all of the cards that are piled up neatly on the table with the chocolates and candies I didn't touch yet.

I still can't believe I managed to pull that off on the first go, I don't understand where I get this power from. Nobody can really pull this off; nearly blowing up a classroom from pure rage, and getting everything perfectly right on the first time. Something doesn't seem right here, what exactly did Snape mean when mom did something she regretted when she went into the past? Maybe the library would have answers, when I'm not doing anything important that is I can use my spare time to go upstairs and look around.

"I had a feeling too, also, where is George; usually he's always with you." My curiosity settles in while I sit on the edge of the bed with Fred, he gazes back at the door that he used to get into my room and just smiles a tiny bit.

"He's been furiously working away lately, I don't feel like we're drifting apart; it's just he puts a lot more effort into his work than I do, maybe I'll smarten up some day; but not some day soon." He flashes me a shit-eating grin, ruffling the top of my head.

"Now, _who's a good kitty?_" He coaxes me, petting my head like he does with Niya. I slap his hand away, grabbing a pillow while laughing and throwing it at him; he stumbles off of the bed and lands on the pile of clothes unable to breathe from the laughter.

"Feisty one aren't you, no worries, I'll tame you one day; mighty beast." He pulls himself up from the floor, gazing at me who's now laying down on the bed gasping for air from the laughter; he smiles softly as he walks towards the door they use, gazing back one last time.

"It's past curfew by the way, you should be sleeping instead of sneaking boys into your dorm." He jokes, opening the door and standing there before he heads down the tunnel.

"Yeah, okay. You're the one who let yourself in; Dumbass." I pick up one of my pillows again, throwing it at him as he shuts the door, avoiding the feathery death as he walks down the end of the tunnel I can hear him chuckling to himself.

I think I'll do just fine if everybody else is terrified of me, I have amazing friends and sometimes it's better to have a few close ones than to have everyone know who you are. Hopefully they stick to Harry since he's The Boy Who Lived and they leave me alone; I guess me and my mother have a lot more in common than I'd like to admit. But what I don't get though is what exactly caused that shattering noise when I was in the Housemaster's room, it made him panic that's for sure. Maybe he wasn't supposed to tell me anything, but why did he if it could put him in danger? I could ponder a lot about everything that's happened, I know I slightly overreacted during his classroom; but I've never heard anyone mention my mother's name so nonchalantly before and it took me by surprise, all I had was her growing up because she made damn sure nobody had me for long enough to hurt me somehow. Maybe it has something to do with the dark magic she was into, perhaps something made her paranoid or something. For that I don't think I'll never know since she's gone now, but it couldn't hurt to poke around in my free time.

I move the Gameboy Fred left and set it down on one of the tables around here, and crawl into bed, lying down against the remaining pillows I have left while Niya jumps up from her comfy spot in my clothes and sits inches away from my face.

"He likes you a lot, you know." Her calming voice purrs into my ear causing me to shoot straight up from almost drifting off into sleep and staring down at her with a shocked expression on my face.

"Y-you can talk?" I stammer, gazing down at the beautiful long haired calico cat who I've known almost my entire life and she somehow decides that now she can open her mouth and speak English.

"Yeah I do, it's a long story too." She smirks almost, curling up back into a ball as if she never spoke a word to me, leaving me confused and restless for the rest of the night.


	8. Hiding in the shadows

It's been a couple weeks since the mysterious figure threw me over the cliff side, followed by everything else that had also happened, everything seems to be going well so far. I never had any random encounters other than the odd Draco run in, lately he's been sucking up to me and it kind of irritates me a little considering how much of a dick he was to me earlier on, his aura is usually clouded by something but it's still strange to me none the less. I'm so used to being able to read people like a book, maybe there's a spell somewhere to seal everything up considering when I stepped closer to Snape, after _knowing_ he used something to cover his color, I felt everything that he was feeling at that exact moment, and quite honestly I don't want to get close to either of them ever again based on how awkward it made me feel. Fred finally showed me what he wanted to earlier, they both play on the Quidditch team and taught me how to ride a broomstick since I never got into that class, I'm not too big on broomsticks and such but it was pretty fun with the both of them showing me the ropes, who knows; maybe I'll get into Quidditch sometime.

Anyways, _the golden trio;_ as I like to call them, have been running among the castle lately with no idea in mind as to what they could be up to. I met Hermione up in the library yesterday when I went on my free time to research anything I could think of after Snape let me off the hook early, anything ranging from mystic animal talking spells; due to Niya's _sudden_ interest in the English language, to anything about my mother that could be remotely helpful in any way. She managed to help me with some tips and tricks for potion making; I guess news travels fast after I nearly destroyed that classroom. She was looking at a fairly old book dating back roughly fifty years ago when I ran into her; I didn't ask why she would be glancing at something so far back in the past since it's clearly obvious that it has something to do with Harry. Everybody knows his story, his parents were killed by Voldemort, he lived mysteriously, blah blah blah, but what strikes me the most is that nobody is willing to tell me anything on the evil guy, I get that he's all mighty and powerful, but other than that it was hard getting his name out from people around here and it took a lot of pleading to get McGonagall to tell me.

As for Niya, she briefly told me that she has been able to speak for quite some time now, mom had charmed her back when she went to Hogwarts from the help of one of the spirits that roam the halls around the sixth corridor using dark magic to increase her life span as well as her vocabulary. She knows not to speak around others, and including me based on how long this cat's been alive and a part of my life for. When I asked how why she started speaking to me so suddenly she simply shrugged and said that it was getting boring pretending to be a normal cat, I really could have used her feedback when I was ranting to her up in the dorm.

The insanely large library has a glass dome-like ceiling to illuminate the stars at night, on really quiet and cloudless nights you can almost see the entire galaxy from this view, it's almost as if we're teetering on the edge of the world towards the dark void of nothingness; probably magnified by the use of magic I'm assuming, and during the day it's crisp and clear despite what the weather is like outside. There's rows upon rows of books that easily could tower over skyscrapers back home, there's even a few charmed books that float around from place to place, and they organize themselves as well. Not to mention there's a section full of comfy chairs and next to a huge window and a fire place that has a small staircase when you first enter the room, as the tables are for studying. The candles aren't in brass holders due to the amount of secrets that are kept in here from over the years and the risk of catching flames on the ancient pages, so instead they float around high up, and close to the wooden tables where some students, mainly Ravenclaws; who usually study here instead of their dorms.

I still don't get why the hat placed me in Slytherin if I have so many other qualities, everywhere I go people either stare at me from afar or they glare like I'm some sort of asshole based on my House, I get it nobody likes Draco, or Pansy for that matter but still; not all of us are gigantic douchebags and I don't know what to do to make these people see that.

I flip the ancient page over, revealing crisp old writing that's slightly faded revealing some of the ancient creatures that used to roam this land, nothing in particular; just looking at random creatures in sheer boredom and lack of entertainment from anywhere. The twins went off to Diagon Alley searching for new invention ideas for their candy shop they have in mind, Snape's being boring and stupid as usual plus I don't want to spend any more time with him than I already have to, surprisingly over the past week or so we've gotten used to each other's company due to spending almost every day together in the hopes of saving my Potions grade, I just don't get the concept of potion making; everything's precise, _you have to stir this way a certain amount of times,_and _oh you have to gently heat the pot because if you forcefully heat the pot you'll explode the entire world and universe_, everything has to be timed right and that's something I'll never be able to do and I think Pouty Pants knows it's true based on how many times I fucked up, after telling him several times that I can't get it right and I never will be able to. I'll just have to get caught up in class and then I can have my free periods back, and once I get them back it's off into the depths of the castle I go.

Niya stretches her lengthy body across the wooden table, kicking my bag a little that's right beside her as she begins to doze off a little, not saying a peep in case people overhear her up in this huge cathedral sized room. My head's slumped against my hand as I flip through the book with my other one, gazing at all of the detailed artwork of these beasts that were sketches centuries ago. Perhaps everybody who's a wizard can sketch or draw amazingly, it sure seems like it to me.

The minutes tick by painfully slow, students eventually get up and leave their spots around me as they head back to their dorms or to wherever they're off to with their books and leather bags. Niya rises up and arches her back upwards, stretching her tight muscles and yawning while holding my gaze with her piercing golden eyes. I can't tell if she wants us to leave this place or what, but judging by the emptiness of this library I can only assume that it's time to head somewhere else.

As I'm standing up from the table, out of the corner of my eye I make out a shy timid image of a girl with long blonde hair and souless eyes that hang over me like a curtain. I quickly turn around to face the mysterious spirit as she giggles faintly and then vanishes before my eyes. Confused and highly curious, I focus my gaze back to the table to grab my bag, noticing Niya on full alert, with her tail puffed out in defense and her eyes frantically searching around the room as well for the mysterious girl.

Hogwarts is full of spirits that love to randomly disappear whenever, there's a few famous ones lurking around whose names I don't remember off the top of my head but surely it'll come around soon. So this is nothing to be scared of, I ran into Hagrid earlier today in the morning down in the dungeons when I emerged from my dorm, he told me how long he'd been here for and how amazed he is that the place never changed; only the students that come through the doors do. We made small talk, first starting off with the forest full of magical creatures by my house in Maine, and ending it with how I noticed something glimmering in the ocean before I succumbed to the bottom of it, and his eyes instantly sparkled out of sheer amazement. He told me that it could be anything, but if_I_ noticed it then it's clearly meant for my eyes only. He rambled about a few possibilities, he confirmed my mermaid theory when we crossed through the water entrance on the first day here and I saw something in the water, and suggested that maybe they hid something, or that it could also be an egg of some creature protected by the ocean's magic. He also pointed out that there's at least a few lakes nearby that could harbor anything as well as books in the library too, other than that it was just reliving memories of this place that held famous wizards.

Niya jumps off of the table and lands on the stone floor with a soft thud, she gazes up as me while her body's facing the library entrance indicating that she wants to leave, without any hesitation I turn back around to face the door and begin to walk out without looking back.

"You saw that too, I take it?" I keep my voice low, in case we're overheard by wandering ears as we take one of the narrow passages down towards the main lobby where the Great Hall is, along with the several entrances. My steps are slightly muffled by the dirt floor, as Niya tip toes around the deep cracks and dents in the ancient bricks and keeps up ahead of me, leading us down one of the old staircases that probably hasn't been used in forever by the amount of dust everywhere.

"Yeah, I'm not really sure about her either, I think I saw her before with Tabitha but I don't remember." Her voice is calming yet scared at the same time as she keeps up her pace a few feet ahead of me and waits impatiently by one of the Garden's entrances in the massive hallway. I have no idea what she's up to, but I think she doesn't know either judging by her ears constantly twitching and her nose fidgeting around in confusion.

It's been getting colder lately; eventually there'll be snow on the ground so I might as well enjoy the slightly chilly weather before I don't even want to set foot outside in fear of freezing to death. I pull out my Slytherin scarf from my bag and wrap it around my neck quickly as I open the huge door since Niya can't, she tenses up at first due to the frigid air but relaxes after a split second and continues her way down through the path towards one of the fountains with her mind set on showing me something probably.

"Should we be careful of her, or ask Snape or the twins about her since they've been here longer?" My breath is barely visible through the cold air while the frost touches the grass on the ground outside of the Gardens that are protected by a cracked dome of glass which also seem to fog up a little from the tiny ice crystals forming on the outside.

Niya hesitates a little bit, I know she's been here since mom has been and if she's edgy about this person then maybe I should be as well. The grass is slightly whitened by the frost that lingers around in the late afternoon haze, usually at night it gets colder by the minute so we shouldn't be out here for too long. My scarf and House robe whips around from the wind that comes off of the ocean, chilling me straight down to the bone as Niya heads over towards one of the few patches of dirt that looks like there was once something built there.

Confused, I gaze around the ground, noticing a few patches of dirt here and there along with pieces of wood poking through the ground around a huge space. Judging by the loose soil it must have been taken down several years ago at least, but why would she take me here instead of just telling me about it?

"It was a small shelter for animals abandoned in the school; there were a lot of them over the years back then. But now they have a home, McGonagall takes care of them inside one of the abandoned rooms and judging by the way that girl was staring at me she must help out as well." She calmly sits down on the ground, patiently waiting for the spirit to show up while she gazes deeply into the empty space that's in front of her, testing to see if her hunch was correct or not.

Right on cue, the image of the girl swirls up again except this time she has little ghost kittens with her by her feet, the second she comes into view this place instantly lights up, a faded hazy image of the small wooden house that once stood here comes into view along with ghostly figures of the animals that used to be here, ranging anywhere from dogs and cats, to bunnies and ferrets all playing around and having a good time whereas the girl stands just inches away from me, clinging onto a couple kittens that keep sticking their paws inside of her hair.

"You smell a lot like her." Her whispery voice echoes though the wind while her lips don't even move, her hair begins to blow around from a breeze that I can't even feel as she turns around in her bare feet and calmly heads towards Niya, who's as tense as can be. She bends down in her flowy nightgown-ish white dress and gently pets Niya's head, smiling faintly as Niya automatically begins to purr like a kitten.

My mind is racing, I can't see any color around her besides a faded white cloud which must be like the spirit's aura- _do spirits even have an aura?_ Not only that but I have no idea who _her_ is, let alone who this girl is. My body tenses up as well, standing still against the frozen earth while watching this girl carefully. My eyes lock onto her movements as she floats back towards the ghostly wooden house, placing the two kittens down on one of the beds inside before emerging by the entrance and smiling softly towards me.

"You _are_her." She extends her arm out towards me in a friendly exchange of some sort, it's almost as if she knows who I am or I'm similar to somebody else that she used to know. Niya moves forward towards the small house, standing directly in front of the girl who still has her hand outstretched towards me, Niya gazes back at me for a split second as if to tell me that it's alright, whereas she's too much in shock to even remember how to speak.

Carefully I managed to pry my stiff legs off of the cold hard ground and move forward very slowly, once I'm in reach with the girl, I lift my arm and touch her frozen cold fingers with mine as her smile widens even more with excitement in her icy dead eyes. The ghostly chill courses through my veins as I feel her ghostly image turning into a solid and eventually my fingers feel like I'm touching another person instead of just cold, dead air. The wooden panels that are hazy and tinted with the same white color that she is also looks to be stable enough for me to step on let alone the animals who now approach me and greet me as if they were still alive.

"I've been waiting for you to return again, Tabitha. Look, I found more!" She happily exclaims, picking up the broken spirits of lost animals and keeping them in this ghostly conjured old home of the one that was previously built here. Judging by her tone she's maybe just a few years younger than me, and why does she think I'm my mother? Confused I just stand there, unable to reply to the girl right away. Eventually I step up on one of the ghostly panels and cautiously walking inside with the strange girl beckoning me over towards a small basket of kittens crying with their mother sleeping beside them.

This place seems warm and cozy ever since I touched her fingers and gained some sort of ghostly trust pact, whatever happened makes it so that I can physically move around in the conjured images as if they were stable enough to support my weight normally. My heart races inside my chest due to the amount of overwhelming things that are happening at once, hopefully I can settle down soon or else I'll be back in the infirmary wing again.

Everything about this seems very surreal, as the girl bends down and smiles at the basket of ghostly felines as her eyes break away briefly and meet mine with a slight hesitation. I just stand there, dumbfounded at where I am, gazing around the haunted building as the girl silently approaches me with the hint that I'm not my mother, and a curious, child-like approach as well.

"You're not her, are you?" Her voice quivers a little in disappointment, while we stand in the empty space staring at each other. Niya licks her paw, washing her face as she strolls over between the two of us knowing that this would happen and intervenes silently because I clearly can't form any words from my mouth right now.

"N-no, I'm not, I'm sorry. She's my mother, that could explain a lot..." I stumble over my words, breaking the silent barrier I had around me, usually talking to the spirits in the castle are much more outspoken than this one; it's always questions about how life was like back during their time and such, she seems quiet and shy than the rest considering I'm just meeting her halfway into October.

Her eyes fall towards Niya in a stunned manner, almost as if she wasn't expecting Tabitha to have kids, whereas Niya let's out a long sigh; stretching out on the faded wooden floor as if she has _a lot_ of explaining to do.

"She had Sennith around the last year of Hogwarts, and Nala shortly after. She didn't tell you, did she?" Her soft voice rings through the air as the girl still seems to be shocked, unaware that she had a daughter but fully aware about her son.

Sennith was my twin and older than me by a couple minutes or so. For some reason mom was more protective over me than him, he was allowed to visit family, and live a normal life whereas I on the other hand; stayed locked up mostly and wasn't allowed to do anything fun. Which kind of wasn't true, she taught me spells earlier on than the original magical family would and that was pretty fun, but still. Sadly something happened to him and our father, costing both of their lives. Mom told me it was a car accident when I was young and I wouldn't have remembered it; but something is telling me that it was more than just a car crash. I was close with him, after all he was my twin so I was devastated, but I learned to accept the loss and I moved on with my mother by my side; and now she's gone too. I haven't yet told the twins at all, but I do understand their bond; which is strange as to how Fred can move around freely without George by his side all the time.

"I knew about the boy, but the girl? How was that even possible..?" The ghost girl's eyes drift towards me with a sense of discomfort just like everybody else in this damn school; I can't help but feel agitated, I don't even know who this girl is and she's already giving off the vibe that I shouldn't even be existing. Lately that's how it's been ever since I arrived here, even during the Sorting Hat drama nobody seemed pleased that I was sorted into Slytherin, it's almost like it was a bad omen or something around here.

Niya stiffens right up, tense as can be as the girl evaporates from her spot and reemerges inches away from my face with a curious wide-eyed stare directly into my eyes. My heart thumps against my chest, she's acting quite strange for a spirit; she seems rather curious of me rather than it being the other way around.

"You're the youngest... This is amazing, I always thought she had just the boy but there's _two_of you!" She exclaims with a huge grin, wrapping her arms around me tightly and gleaming with pride. I force out a small smile, still unaware who this girl is even and what her connection to my mom was, eventually the girl catches on about how I have no clue what's going on as she laughs a little and pulls away from me.

"I totally forgot, you have _no idea_ who I am don't you? Of course she didn't tell you about me, I'm Naomi; one of your mother's best friends during her years here." Her eyes sparkle with happiness radiating from her entire existence since she doesn't have a physical form. It makes some sense as she was always befriending the spirits around the school, my senses relax a little knowing who this strange girl is while Niya smiles vaguely and purring slightly. The color returns to my face after being frozen emotion wise. My heart finally slows down after pounding in my chest for quite some time now, maybe I can befriend her too.

My eyes widen a little in disbelief, but she knows her name and everything makes sense, maybe I'll finally have some of the answers to my questions over the first month or so of pondering around and searching for an answer. Oh man, the twins aren't going to believe this.

"I'm Nala, I can't believe you actually knew her, I have so many questions since she never told me about this school, and everyone already knows who I am; they stay clear of me-" I was cut off by Naomi's laughter as she regains her breath and smiles at me. Alarmed by the barrage of questions and endless rambling I had planned I assume.

"Of course she didn't tell you, it's her way of trying to keep you safe from the magical dangers silly." Niya throws her a sharp glare causing her to instantly shut her mouth tight. Magical dangers? What kind of threat can happen on school grounds for crying out loud. Confused, my eyes narrow a little trying to think of any dangers off the top of my head that could happen around here. Before I can even open my mouth to question the dangers, Naomi beats me to it.

"There's a lot of dangerous things that lurks in the abandoned parts of the school, they prohibit most of it but when you're up for it we can go exploring." She offers willingly, as Niya grumbles in defeat almost as if she was trying to hide these from me.

The sunlight filters through the broken window, illuminating the broken spirits that walk around on all fours inside. It's probably around the late afternoon since I spent most of my afternoon up in the library, and I just have that feeling that the twins are looking around for me as well. Plus I've always wanted to explore the grounds, who knows? Maybe this'll be fun if we run into something.

"I'd love to do that sometime." I smile, bonding with one of my mother's friends who I've never gotten a chance to meet when I was younger. Naomi carefully glances around the room, especially outside of the window as her eyes widen a little, as if the time had also gotten away from her too.

"I hate to cut this short but, we have to get moving before the curfew, Naomi you can come with us if you'd like." Niya licks her paw once more, and starts heading towards the entrance, waiting for the two of us with her glassy eyes piercing Naomi's.

"I'll race you both, I doubt you'll win but, it's worth a try. Slytherin dorm, right?" She winks, waving quickly and evaporating once again; except this time she takes the entire building with her and we're left standing in the empty dirt patch that we were greeted with when we came outside. It's almost as if every single trace of whatever was there vanished in under a matter of seconds. She doesn't even let me answer her question before vanishing as well, I guess I better catch up then.

The crisp cold wind begins to lash around faintly, blowing my long hair around in the breeze as the chill stings my cheeks a little, I guess I'll have to dig out my winter coat for earlier than I thought if this place gets any colder.

"I didn't remember Naomi from when your mother went here, well vaguely I suppose, but other than that my memory is foggy as well." Niya trots along the soft grass towards the Garden's entrance and suddenly stops, gazing along behind her to make sure I'm following. I can tell Niya's struggling to remember certain things, and there could be a number of reasons as to why she's forgetting.

My eyes drift over toward's the forest's edge that's quite a long way's down the hill, there seems to be a dark aura surrounding the mysterious grounds, and I think I can somewhat see shadowy figures moving about close to the edge. I peel my eyes away and smile softly at Niya, her memory's probably going from either old age or mom put a spell on her, I had no idea she was into dark magic and twisted around the rules like it was a game.

"Nala, there you are,-

we've been looking everywhere for you." The melody and harmony voices of the twins ring though the now still air as they approach from around the corner of the school, wrapped up in their Gryffindor scarves and grinning from ear to ear, walking towards the two of us with a bundle of energy behind each step they take and pride emitting from their hue of color that trails along behind them.

My eyes light up seeing the both of them, after experiencing what the spirits are capable of doing I'm just glad I can finally clear my mind on the strange concept of solidifying the spirit realm or whatever, Niya rolls around on the grass, swatting at the flowers that poke up randomly around the place in the mean time.

"Hey, I was just- looking around." I stammer a little, I don't think it'd be a great idea to jump right into the whole Naomi thing just yet, besides, they don't even know about Niya's vocal chords, or the encounters and shadowy figures down by the forest. George rests his arm around his brother's shoulder, pocketing his wand and tightening up his scarf some more against the October air while Fred gleams brightly, gazing in my direction and knowing right away that I'm full of shit.

"Yeah, yeah, so you say. Hey, we're heading down to the Quidditch pitch to get a few extra laps in before the last game next week; did you want to tag along?" George smirks, knowing that I've secretly taken a liking to the whole idea of tackling students in mid-air while riding broomsticks and chasing a tiny golden ball; well, not fond of the broomstick part but tackling people, that's a different story.

All though I'd love to spend some time with them as we haven't had any chances to hang out lately due to the extra Potions assignments and them being busy with their shop ideas, I simply can't for the fact that Naomi's waiting back at the dorm, maybe one day I'll tell them about her and Niya; but for now I still need time to sort it out on my own as I'm still a bit confused on how any of this is even possible.

"I would but, you know how Snape is." I roll my eyes a little, saying the first thing that pops into my head so they don't think I'm leaving them for a not so serious matter. Fred snorts sarcastically, while George chuckles a little bit. Man, even when I try to lie and come up with an excuse, it's always him that I can think of as a scapegoat.

"Ditching us for your boyfriend I see?-

Tsk tsk Nala, I see how it is." They both chime in, playing around of course as they begin to smirk slyly at me. They know why I've been spending so much time with that dumbass, but I can't help but notice a slight shift in Fred's attitude and aura whenever I mention his name around him.

"You know where we'll be if you need us, we'll be seeing you." George hollers as they head towards the pitch that's just up the small hill with the stone path leading the way. As soon as they're out of sight; Niya sighs deeply, smirking at me in the process as well, almost as if she's gloating about how right she is and how I never notice the obvious.

"Like I said, you know he likes you; right?" She huffs, puffing out her tail and heading through the open door as I trail along behind her, pondering over Fred's emotions and how he always acts around me seeing as how it's finally starting to show through his hue.

She does have a point, that's how I can tell them apart so easily; Fred was always the sensitive one towards other people's emotions, whereas George was the quiet one in social situations. It kind of makes sense considering they act differently around me, but act similar around other people. Not to mention Fred's been with me alone before without his other half, and I like them quite a lot; but do I like one enough to actually start something?

"Yeah, I figured as much, but you know me; I never was the type to even consider dating." I swat it away, as Niya laughs a little, trying to keep it down as we head through the Gardens that have several students either relaxing or studying hard. The sunlight dips lower and lower each minute, lingering above the eerie forest that sends shivers down my spine for all the wrong reasons. I still haven't yet discovered what that shiny object was in the ocean, and to be quite honest it'll have to wait as the winter weather is starting to settle in already.

I push against the huge oak door to get back inside the castle, where I can see Naomi lingering around the halls without gathering any student's attention as she does so, she casually glances over towards me and flashes me a huge smile, before evaporating and leaving a small wispy trail heading downstairs towards the Slytherin dorms. We both pick up our pace, it's odd how the majority of the Slytherin dorms are underneath the lake, but mine is above ground level along with the Common room, to be fair I guess my room was technically a storage room and usually there's about two to four people in a dorm; I'm amazed they took into consideration to give me a single one, it probably has something to do with my mother.

We slip away down into the depths of the dungeons, or as far as we're allowed to stray as we reach the main tower that we have to climb up, a loud crashing noise can be heard further down the hall with the sound of clattering objects and a swift movement in the dark parts of the dungeon, instantly Niya jumps, startling me a little as we both just shrug it off and head inside towards where Naomi vanished off to. It'll be a little difficult getting used to having an evaporating friend who hides a lot, but at least she shows herself to me whenever I'm around. It almost makes me wonder how long she's been shadowing me, and if she knows a lot more about what's going on than anyone else; but she did say how nobody knew about me, but they knew about Sennith, which is odd because we were both born on the same day. I wonder if Professor Pouty Pants knew about it as well, or maybe he was just as surprised since he also knew my mother. All of these answers just keep opening more doors for questions to be asked, I honestly wonder if I'll ever truly find out what's going on here in this strange world hidden away from the society I grew up in.


	9. Changing characteristics

Naomi's a bit of a wanderer, one second she's by your side and talking about whatever pops into her head; and the next she's down the hall gazing around at anything and everything. She has opened up a little to me after the first day of discovering her in the library, such as she belonged to Hufflepuff when she was alive, she's beyond shy of everything; yet willing to venture around the halls, and she's been around for quite some time now. She hasn't admitted to how long she's been around, or anything about my mother; but it's still good to know about her individually.

My eyes wander around the dull classroom as several other students follow my move to avoid making contact with the _greatest_ Professor ever. The dungeons have gotten colder as the month progressed, leaving a slight chill in the air and causing a few students to get sick; either that or they ditched because it's freezing down here.

I guess you can say after a few weeks of spending time with this guy he's gotten more tolerable, as in we're not at each other's throats every second, and not to mention the tension is so thick you can slice through it with a knife. It's been hard to get used to it, especially when my cheat sheet doesn't work on him so I'm left to guess his patience. I'm still shit at potion making, the ingredients are taking forever to get used to since most of them I'm never heard of before, and the whole fire element... I have to completely wipe my mind and focus if I don't want to accidentally burn the herbs to a crisp.

I drown out Snape's voice with the sound of my own thoughts playing through my mind, anything from the twins, to Niya pops in and grabs my attention such as Fred's infatuation with me and George's sudden urge to stop any ideas for their candy shop. Lately he's been either in his dorm studying and slaving over work, or he's practicing at the Quidditch pitch and none of us knows why. Also, I've heard about the annual Halloween party that's always planned, it's usually held in one of the classrooms or the Great Hall; I think it's up a few floors this year, since the usual dungeon spot is freezing earlier than it should. I was always into Halloween, usually I'd dress up as a zombie back at my old school and scare the living shit out of everybody with my classic chasing scene with a few others in on the gag, I have yet decided what I could do for the party; that is if it even is going to be a costume party.

A loud dreary sigh escapes my lungs as Snape dazzles us with his boring, monotone voice and _fantastic_ knowledge of useless potion making techniques that I could honestly care less for. His eyes casually skim over mine every so often during his ranting, making sure that I'm still engaged I think, and causing a bit of unwelcomed tension to form all around the dark room; especially between the two of us.

"Now, despite being the weakest link in this classroom, Miss Lamia could you care to recite the misguided importance of Amortentia?" His smug grin says it all, he knows damn well I don't care enough to pay attention to his rants.

My mind rambles a bit, deciding between a snarky remark or a half assed answer surely to get everybody's attention. The class falls silent, knowing that he's only picking on me for the sheer fact that I don't give a damn.

"Why are you even asking me? You know I don't care." My eyes pierce his instead of it being the other way around. Surely I caught him off guard as he's still a bit stunned and his little grin vanishes instantly. Now the classroom really _is_ silent, I can only imagine the looks on their faces right now since I'm stuck in the front row.

"I am asking you to see if you are caught up or not, you've made it fairly clear that you do not apply yourself." He simply states, holding my gaze for a little longer before prying his eyes off and glancing around the classroom. A few snickers can be heard around the back, knowing that it's probably Draco as usual.

I notice the nearby candle begins to heat up significantly, holding in any kind of comeback I can use against him in fear of being thrown out. I don't get why he's nice to me one on one, but around others he has to take advantage of his position and use it against me. Sometimes I just can't make heads or tails about it, and honestly I don't think I want to dive into it any further.

Eventually he ends his ranting and dismisses the class, students begin to grab their belongings and head for the door to enjoy another class or head outside during the light snowfall that we had earlier this morning. I reach for my bag and haul myself up to my feet to join the rest when suddenly a dark figure approaches my line of sight and my eyes lock onto his dark shoes that are beside my desk.

My stomach instantly sinks to the ground, I suppose the twins are going to have to practice for the Quidditch game without me.

A loud sigh escapes my lungs as I raise my head, glancing up at the gloomy stare of the most hated Professor here. Oddly enough a spark of color emits around him before vanishing and suddenly I'm engulfed by the weird sensation I usually feel when I stand too close to people.

"I have an odd request for you, if you would choose to listen." His monotone voice blankly relays back some sense of excitement as I slowly rise to my feet, without breaking my eye contact and my mind racing a million thoughts per second. This is the first time he's actually wanted me to stay back for anything else other than work related things. If anything he'll tell me more about my mother.

"Sure, I'll _graciously_hand over my time of day, now what do you want?" The words slip from my mouth with such a pleasant ring to them, the bitter air inside of the stone classroom chills me to the bone as the weather changes for the better, so to speak. His eyes lower a little bit, pondering if he should event mention what he was going to say to me in the first place.

"If you are attending the party we have annually, then I would advise you to be cautious of your whereabouts." He seldomly replies with a slight risk rising in his voice as he holds my gaze with his, slowly heading towards the open door and stopping by the entrance, waiting for me to leave.

"And allow me to protect you."

Confused, I face him, tightening the grip on my bag and walking briskly towards him. Being cautious should be mandatory in this school shouldn't it? After all, I've had enough excitement for now so what's a little more going to do? Maybe I can sneak away from the party if it's too boring and explore a little without getting caught. As for the last part, why would he even _say_ that?

"Are you coming, or are you going to leave me behind?" His sudden change in attitude completely throws me off guard, usually he hates me and shows it pretty well, not to mention he's been acting differently around me; such as during the extra hours I'm forced to spend with him usually results in a normal conversation, usually with me joking around and him being stone faced without cracking a smile but none the less joining in. I can't tell if I still dislike him or not based on how noticeably he's changing, maybe he finally realized he's an asshole and decided to change for the better.

"May's well, where we headed?" I flash a smirk, grazing on past him as he shuts the classroom door and quickly passes me without any ease and not answering my question. He heads towards the far end of the dungeon with his robes slightly grazing across my legs while we walk side by side in silence. The uneasy tension is stronger than ever when it's just us versus being inside of the classroom full of people, I can tell he's awkwardly uncomfortable but he doesn't bother shifting anything aside or trying to hold a conversation.

It feels weird not having the twins or Niya by my side, especially Naomi; I wonder where she went off to considering I haven't seen her all day yet. I know Niya's in the dorms, and the twins are off for the Quidditch tournament that's taking place in an hour or so; so whatever he wants to show me or talk about he better make it quick.

"Should I apologize now, or later?" He finally stifles a response as we head down the end of the dungeon corridor, there's absolutely no paintings down here at all, and a bunch of dusty looking doors that lead to literally anywhere and begging for me to take a peek at. My heart jolts a little inside of my chest, wondering on what he means by apologizing as we continue to make our way down the dimly lit hall towards another set of stairs I'm assuming.

"What do you mean, why would you apologize to me? If anything I'm the one being a dick to you." I silently admit, staggering along beside him as a small wave of emotion washes over the both of us, causing my skin to chill colder inside this freezing basement.

We finally reach the end of the hall, so far no sign of anything; living or dead. He turns towards another slightly brighter corridor with a large set of stairs heading upwards with a painting or two hanging beside one of the walls.

"You're something else, Lamia. I don't quite know what yet, but you are different from Tabitha." His eyes skim across mine as he glances towards me from the corner of his eye, his lips twitch into a small smile while the staircase gets closer and closer.

My heart stops dead in it's tracks, why the Hell is this guy being nice to me all of a sudden? What exactly is he trying to play here, is it at least a _good_ thing that I'm different from my mother, or is it because I'm a total fuck up with his pride and joy class? Silently we continue on, without having any words to say to him through this bountiful act of kindness.

"It's cold outside, after all you want to see your friends play their match don't you?" He began, stopping in his tracks and turning around to face me with a weird sensation tingling between the two of us in the still air. Personally I want to know why he's changed all of a sudden, I miss the casual arguments, and the snarkiness, why is he suddenly apologizing for it?

"What's really on your mind, Snape? It's usually the same fights over and over again and it's been like that for a month straight, why are you so suddenly trying to suck up to me?" Clearly my words impacted him as he staggers back a step or two, he closes his eyes briefly before opening them and pulling out my scarf from under his cloak, I must have left behind in the rush to leave, moving my hair with one of his hands as he wraps the long Slytherin colored scarf around my neck, a tingling feeling surges across my skin from where his fingers skim against my neck causing a cluster of mixed emotions to swarm all over my mind. He smiles softly for the first time I've ever seen as he tucks the two lose ends together to keep it from blowing away in the frigid air outside.

"You proved a point to me, you're capable of handling yourself and it's shown through your efforts in class; I'm only warning you now though, you will be safer with me. Understand?" He pulls his hands away from my scarf, piercing my eyes with his cold, sharp ones.

It's as if time had stopped in this moment, my mind tries its best to comprehend what the fuck just happened, and why he's being so incredibly nice to me all of a sudden. The dimly lit hallway that's behind us crashes again but this time faintly, I guess Snape didn't pick up on it since he didn't even flinch or turn around to face the direction of the noise, but it sounds exactly like the one I heard a bit ago. I'll be safer with him, that's what he's telling me; I don't even understand what he means by that at all. Why does it have to be me of all people, shouldn't _The Boy Who Lived_ be the one they protect if everything goes to shit?

"What do you mean I'll be safe with you? You're not making any sense." My feet slowly edge towards one of the entrances out of sheer instinct considering it's getting slightly weird down here. I can't tell what his aura is doing, considering it's shifting so fast and everything I'm feeling is giving me a headache. He doesn't say a word as he swiftly moves faster towards the door, reaching it before I could even touch the handle. He opens it silently and letting me pass through first without saying a word, glancing back behind us with a small hint of fear laced in his eyes.

The crisp air lingers all around us while we walk in silence across the lightly frosted ground towards the Quidditch Pitch that's just up the hill, several other students also make their way towards the arena for the last game of the season; followed by the Halloween party that we have a couple hours after the game. I vaguely make out the twins all dressed up in their beater gear both swinging their batons with a permanent grin plastered on their faces with Niya trailing along behind them probably looking for me. The two of them don't really notice me yet but Niya stops dead in her tracks, facing my direction.

I already know what she's thinking, and to be honest I have no idea why he's following me to the Pitch either. I don't know what could make this more awkward; the twins noticing me and walking over, or Draco trying to strike up a conversation again like he did a day ago.

Snape's been quiet ever since he opened his mouth down in the dungeons, one thing I definitely don't get is how he knew I existed when Naomi didn't even know about me until I said something. It's not like I can force him to tell me what exactly is going on here, I know damn well he won't open his mouth to me since he said I'd be safer with him. What the _Hell_does that even mean? If something's clearly out to get me I'm sure Niya would have told me by now, none of this makes sense; none of it.

The Professor still stands silently beside me while the twins eventually meet my gaze, immediately they change directions and head towards the two of us, Fred's expression hardens while George is still cheerful to finally see me as they both pretend to ignore the fact that the most hated Professor is standing beside me with a permanent scowl sketched across his face.

"We've been looking for you, Niya's been at our heels and twitching furiously lately; glad we found you." He smiles, flicking his eyes between the cold hearted man beside me and my lame attempts to pretend that he's not even there; I don't get why he has to follow me now, it's not that hard to just fuck off and find me later when shit gets worse.

"I figured, she wasn't down with me in class, all is well; I guess." I force out a stifled laugh as they can't help but shift their gaze towards Snape, who seems stone faced as usual about this whole conversation; making it _twice_ as awkward as it would be without him around.

"Well, best be off before everyone thinks we've abandoned them. Nala, _Snape_." They both acknowledge the presence of the both of us side by side. Fred glowers, turning back towards one of the paths that leads underneath the Pitch to where the teams get ready for their match. I guess the Slytherin team isn't good, _at all_ considering Gryffindor's facing Ravenclaw in the finals; maybe I should try out when the season starts, but I have no idea what position to take if need be. Niya's eyes pierce mine with a question assuming it's towards the obvious, she sneezes from the cold and claws up at my lag, begging to be picked up from this horrid white fluff freezing her paws.

The slight chill in the air blows a small, violent gust of wind towards our direction, causing a few stray flurries to get mixed inside of my brown hair, I carefully bend down and grab a hold of Niya's soft fur while she crawls up my arm and positions herself on my shoulder; glaring at Snape I presume.

"You're beyond creepy, you know that right? Why do you have to follow me everywhere, why can't you just find something else to do." I huff, agitated by now silent he is. Niya clings to my House robe while shoving her way against my neck and underneath the scarf to keep warm, as everybody heads towards the bleachers inside of the stadium.

"I understand your argument perfectly, you however;don't. I'll be leaving, Miss Lamia." He simply states, brushing past me while gazing at me from the corner of his eye, moving forward towards the Pitch where everybody else is headed, without glancing back he just continues to trudge along among the students who have small groups of friends, keeping up their pace and disappearing towards one of the entrances for the bleachers. A small light snowfall begins to drift slowly down towards the ground as I let out a long sigh, carefully stepping along the patches of grass that's still visible so I don't slip and break something.

"So, going to explain?" Niya murmurs silently, in case anybody overhears her as I make my way along the frosty path alone, she has her furry face plastered against my neck for extra warmth after walking around on the ground for some time.

"Kind of a long story, actually. He said something about being 'safe with him' over anything else." Niya pauses greatly, staying silent for the rest of the journey up to the cold bleachers where everybody else is headed.

"I see, interesting." She forces out the words quietly as we head towards the crowd by the main doors. Usually Niya isn't so quiet and timid about this, perhaps she _does_know something I don't.

The view is amazing from up here; everything's split based on Houses in an attempt to separate everyone for the best, which means I'm stuck in the same row as Snape and the eerie, anti social crew also known as the Slytherins. Despite my seat, next to one of the wooden pillars however; I can still see perfectly clear for the arena; as the two teams race around the huge open space. The twins are both beaters for the Gryffindor team, while Harry's main focus is catching the Snitch. Other than that I don't really know anyone else; even on the Ravenclaw team for that matter. The cold air illuminates the breath of everyone as they cheer and holler among the crowd; the teams begin to set up firmly on their side of the goals and wait for further instructions from whoever runs this thing.

The clouds overhead begin to slowly dissolve the sky into a sea of grey, I guess it's that time of year again when everything disappears and succumbs to the snow and sickly weather. A few strands of lightning catch my eye during the daylight, which is odd considering storms usually happen in the dead of the night.

The wooden bench isn't as cold as I thought it would be; instead its being stuck up here is what's causing me to shiver uncontrollably. Once the crowd simmers down, both of the head Housemasters are down on the field talking to each of their teams, make's me wonder if I even want to go for the Slytherin team knowing that it's Snape who's supposedly going to be in charge. I've honestly never witnessed a match of this before, I was never really big into sports back home but this however, seems like it could be exciting.

A slight annoying hushed voice can be heard among the cheers of fans above my row, considering the only person I know who complains about everything in the Slytherin house is Draco; I'm not too surprised he found something to complain about already.

"_Potter this_, and _Potter that_; I wish our team would focus on something right for once." I'm blessed by hearing the annoying voice of Draco Malfoy ranting about his addiction to hating Harry to his little friends as they snicker along, no wonder everyone hates us.

"He annoys me, greatly." Niya murmurs once again, keeping her voice down in case anybody over hears us. I nod my head silently in agreement, hoping he won't notice I'm a few seats below him. The blonde devil eventually catches sight of me and shifts down towards one of the empty spots beside me, grinning casually as always and kicking his feet up against one of the wooden ledges.

"I didn't see you here, I had no idea you were even interested in these kinds of things." He attempts to make small talk, lately he's been like Snape; trying to get on my good side and being a different person around me. I don't get any of it to be quite honest, it's only been almost two months and already they're changing personalities.

"Not really, it's mandatory to be here since it's the final game and all." I force out any form of interaction with this dense idiot. He just grins brightly and faces towards me with a hue of grey surrounding him and his deathly blue eyes lock onto mine.

"Let's cut to the chase, there's the party tonight; and I know we haven't gotten off on the right footing and I would just _love_to make it up to you." His eyes are slightly narrowed than before, while a devious smile spreads across his face, Niya hisses at him causing him to jump a little while I try to hold in my laughter.

I can't help but wonder what's gotten inside of his little dense head lately. Usually he's either ranting about who knows what; usually Harry, and commenting on how great and rich he is towards his friends in the attempt to get people's attention. I grew up perfectly fine not having everything I wanted, I already know his father works for the Wizard equivalent of a government in here so of course he's rich; maybe I should give him a little life lesson.

"I guess she spoke for the both of us. Nice try though, all though might I suggest not being a dick for the first few days upon meeting someone? Perhaps you would have had a better chance." I focus my attention back towards the game that has just started, the twins face off against the Ravenclaw beaters for one of the balls as everybody else just zooms around, trying to distract the other teammates with an onslaught of quick movements.

His face instantly drops, while a couple of his friends giggle uncontrollably at his failed attempt. He stammers a bit before silently pouting for a few seconds, still sitting beside me as if he's trying to think of his next move. Just a handful of people beside him on the opposite side sits Snape, as his eyes meet mine while also trying to hold back a smirk or two.

"If it helps, I'm really sorry for that; _encounter_on the train." He admits, gazing up towards me with a strange color shift to show that he truly is sorry for the way he was acting. Confused I just sit there, silently pondering over what to say next. He surely is sorry for his rudeness and such, but how will I know that he's serious about getting to know me? I guess it wouldn't hurt to make friends, since I confined myself to the twins and the random encounters with Hermione... All though I don't know how everyone would take to me being casual 'besties' with this idiot.

"Apology accepted, I guess. As for the party I don't know if I'll even show up." I slightly shift my attention towards him over the game as the light snowfall continues to surround everyone and flowing gently in the cold breeze. His eyes widen a little, shocked I guess that I even gave him my time of day since he was a little shitstain before hand, his friends sitting up a couple rows above us carefully quiet down as they realize that hes actually getting a conversation from me.

"Not a problem, it's quite boring anyways if you don't have people with you. So, you and the Weasley twins- I never thought they'd separate from themselves to welcome someone else in between them." He tries to strike up a conversation as the two teams whiz around on the field, a small tiny golden ball is released into the air and whips around at lightning speed as Harry and one of the Ravenclaw's break away from the cluster of people. I guess Gryffindor scored a few times while Ravenclaw seems to be ahead during the time I wasn't paying attention; I guess this game goes by fast.

"Yeah uh, they're something alright." I force out a small laugh as his eyes relax a little. It's a bit odd how he'd bring up the twins; but I guess he's been trying to at least get in touch with me from the beginning of the year. He turns his attention towards the game for a few minutes, staying quiet as ever while the two race around after the Snitch, the snow quickly begins to thicken around all of us while just down below I notice a few of the professors whispering to each other very quietly in case anybody overhears them. I notice McGonagall casually gazing around with a sharp hawk-like glare while the others keep a sharp lookout as well. Hagrid stands by one of the entrances down below towards the bleachers to keep an eye out for something; or anything by the looks of it.

I didn't know they had their own separate place to sit from the students, I'm assuming _he's_only sitting here to '_keep an eye on me_' after the whole encounter thing in the dungeons. I still don't know why he was so calm and gentle even with my scarf; he could have just handed it to me but instead he had to make it more creepier than it already was. I don't think I'll ever understand him; not to mention his intentions which I certainly _don't_want to even think about.

"Have you ever been to Hogsmeade?" Draco casually asks, curious about my answer and trying to create more small talk to fill the awkwardness around us.

"I don't think so, I knew the twins and I went to Diagon Alley to find some things- honestly this is all new to me." I admit a little, being completely honest with him. I haven't really set foot outside of the school grounds and if I did it wasn't for long and it was off to the main part of the town. Other than that I have no idea what's outside and what it's like.

The crowd cheers as the Gryffindor's pull ahead in the score, I can vaguely make out the twins reaching around in the air and high fiving each other as the two seekers still go at it for the Snitch. The huge scoreboard over towards one of the announcer booths; run by a couple students obviously has the scores listed at 34 and 42, the rest of the teams swerve back towards their sides of the field for the third match as the two seekers still keep in focus with the Snitch.

"Hogsmeade is the only town in here, _everybody_ lives there. I'm surprised that you haven't heard of it, there's a great small shack that serves amazing fizzy drinks if you're up for it- not like a _date_ or anything; just friends I _swear_." The poor boy struggles over his words and stumbles profusely every time he opens his mouth. I can't help but roll my eyes a little, off to the side so he doesn't notice at his lame attempt to '_get to know me better_' after the snotty remarks. I guess I'm no better, but mine's for fun, his however; not so much.

I can tell his aura is flustered, my eyes gaze upwards for a few seconds at his friends who seem baffled that he's even made it this close to communicating with me without having some sort of screaming match as usual. Personally I sense that he's just troubled in all the wrong ways; he has the decency to change but his hatred is so strung up on Harry that it's unbelievable.

"I'll think about it, I wouldn't mind roaming around outside of the school." I calmly agree, after all I can tell nobody else has ever even tried to approach him willingly; and I don't blame them, he's a bit of a douche.

He smiles faintly, covering it up and turning his focus back to the game as the both of us sit in silence, while the endless flow of flurries stream down from the sky. The two teams begin to start round three on the field, the twins both smile towards the crowd while swinging their beating sticks and enormous roar emits from the Gryffindor side of the stadium. Niya grumbles in protest at our small, civilized conversation, almost scolding me for even talking to him whereas I lightly nudge her with my arm, hushing her up in the process and returning my attention back to the only finals that everyone looks forward to.


	10. A dangerous past

The Ravenclaw team eventually catches up towards the Gryffindors in points on the scoreboard after a few minutes of close calls from both teams. Instantly the crowd simmers down and watches the two people high up in the air fight over the Snitch as the blinding snow begins to fall heavier than ever. My breath is heavy against the cold wind while the clouds surrounding the Pitch continue to get darker by the minute, my eyes quickly break away from the two people chasing after the tiny ball towards where the Professors all sit, casually spotting Dumbledore with a terrified expression lingering on his face followed by the rest of them.

"I'm not liking this..." Niya murmurs quietly, trying to make sure that she isn't overheard by Draco as his eyes seem to be plastered on the match. I silently agree with her, an eerie feeling suddenly washes me as the colors rise above the people in the bleachers; illuminating the dark grey sky with bright colors such as blue, orange, yellow, and a few greens here and there. I know not everyone here can see the amazingcolor show that I can see, but right now I find it more important than the match; considering I've _never_witnessed a hue like this before.

I've never really understood what this whole color thing was, let alone what significance it has... I haven't witnessed anything like this when everybody else is clumped together so I really don't know what's going on right now.

The two teams whiz around in the open field, a few Ravenclaws get a little too close to the bleachers with a couple Gryffindors right on their tail; up above I notice the clouds growing exceptionally darker by the second, followed by the small glinting golden ball that dashes through the wind currents while Harry struggles to grasp it before the other seeker does. Then, just out of nowhere; a brilliant strike of lightning flashes across the sky with a loud, deafening pulse that shatters the stadium and silences everybody sitting in the crowd. Instantly my eyes shoot towards Snape, who seems to be baffled as well by the sudden explosion, then my eyes casually graze over the terrified students in the bleachers and on the field. The Ravenclaw who was chasing the Snitch right behind Harry lets go of their broomstick and instantly begins to fall towards the ground below at an alarming rate; clearly unconscious and smouldering from the sudden strike.

My eyes widen fearfully, witnessing the devastating act as the Professors down below slightly panic; with a few of them rushing towards one of the entrances to help I'm assuming. Panicked shrieks can be heard across the stand, while the twins instantly whip around and gaze down below; changing gears and soaring after the unconscious player plummeting towards the ground while everybody else is in full panic mode.

My heart stops instantly, lightning doesn't work like that, how come only one flash lit up the sky without any other ones to accompany it? My eyes stay glued towards the twins as they both reach out at the same time and hook their arms around the player, hauling them down towards the ground where Professor Flitwick emerges from down below with the school's nurse on hand and a few other Professors as well.

Draco shifts his confused attention towards me, baffled at what he just witnessed as he's clearly still in shock and having some hard time forming words with his mouth.

"That never happened before-" Draco was cut off from Snape slowly approaching the both of us from a few spots down, and shooting him a look that instantly shuts him up with no context behind it whatsoever. Draco silently nods, standing up and avoiding my eye contact as he hurries along the cluster of students trying to leave. Snape's dark eyes then linger over towards me, emitting a strong sensation that my instincts warn me about; while grabbing my arm and hauling me up off of the bleachers without any words being spoken and dragging me along towards one of the exits.

Everything's going by so fast, the blinding flurries of snow start to sting whatever skin I have out in the open, Niya quietly goes along with this sudden change of plans, clinging to my robe with her claws and staying wrapped inside my scarf. A thousand questions race through my mind as to why his first instinct was to grab me and leave; maybe what he said _is_true about being safer around him than anyone else.

"What the Hell, what's going on-" I stammer profusely, caught off guard and unable to function properly under this dire circumstance as he continues to pull me along through the crowd.

"We need to leave, now." He hushes, alarmingly his aura seems to sear through the block he has and radiates a fearful emotion, keeping his eyes peeled as we both hurry along the steps while everybody else begins to panic suddenly. This seriously can't be happening right now, what about the twins in the stadium; and everyone else that's trapped down there? I really don't know what's going on, would I even be able to help create a distraction if need be?

Through the dark sky, a few more lightning strikes emerge, followed by sketchy looking dark figures with a wispy-like appearance that begins to soar around the open sky, causing the students to freak out even more during this event along with the Professors.

The dark figures remind me of the masked ones by the train platform, creating a wave of anger forming deep down inside of me after leaving me with memories I'll never forget. Niya tenses up a bit, she must feel the anger pretty well since she's pressed up against my neck as far as she can.

I don't even bother arguing with him right now, clearly he knows what's up and I don't; especially right now. We continue our way down one of the wooden steps towards the solid ground in complete silence when he abruptly stops and turns around to face me with a cold stare lingering his eyes over the scenery, before speaking.

"You need to hide, stay behind me and quickly keep up." No context again whatsoever, just the standard 'I'm the hero, follow me' bullshit he's been throwing at me lately. I sigh deeply, knowing that I can't really argue with him anymore due to the circumstances. But if push comes to shove; I _do_ have my wand on me and the anger's still boiling down inside.

Niya's claws dig into my House robe tightly, nearly piercing my skin as the both of us race towards the school across the open field; desperate to get to a safe place. Students from all around begin to also do the same, seeking refugee inside of the castle while several of the Professors take out their wands and begin to cast spells against the wispy figures in the sky.

Colorful strikes of wizard spells I've never witnessed before fly back and forth around the sky, I don't really know any cool tricks besides blasting things with fire; it gets the job done and my point across, but I don't get why my power is furled on emotions alone. A few of them smash right into the stadium, causing a few pillars to splinter under the pressure and collapse; creating a slight swell in my heart for the twins, knowing that they're around there and the fear of the unknown is lurking inside; adding more fuel to the burning fire.

Snape's hue triggers an insane amount of dedication, mixed with a bit of fear, and knowing what's about to happen next. For a quiet man he sure knows how to predict events; either that or his timing is scarily accurate.

As soon as we reach one of the entrances towards the Gardens, a massive lightning bolt strikes the ground just a few feet behind us, melting the snow and sketches a detailed design into the grass below our feet in a very wide radius. I feel Snape's hand let go of my arm and slip inside of his pocket, pulling out his only means of defense I assume as the smoke clears from the explosive force and out rises one of the dark figures from the train station a couple months ago; wearing a detailed mask almost identical to the one that threw me off of the cliff. Once again, increasing the building rage that's stored inside me.

"Ah, Severus; what a wonderful surprise." A luscious voice emits from behind the dressup, the dark figure slowly approaches the two of us, while Snape pushes me aside; stepping in front of the hooded figure and putting some distance between me and him without backing down. His eyes lower intensely at the man with a burning passion, piercing his cold ones like daggers.

"There's nothing else left, you've accomplished your doings now leave before I force you out." He sternly replies with his stone faced complexion. The mysterious man laughs for a good little while, hesitating on whether or not he should reveal himself. He slowly pulls off his detailed mask and revealing the same man that was walking beside Draco at the train station; covered head to toe in darker than black robes that linger a ghostly essence while his long thin, blonde hair falls over his shoulders with a sly grin spread across his perfect face.

I know right away who he is, the images from him gazing at us across the platform before my mother met her demise. I'm a bit not surprised that Draco's related to him, it's just the feeling he emits lately matches this man's completely. All though I don't know his name, I really don't think it's important enough to ask. The snowfall suddenly stops, leaving a few deep patches of snow around the ground as the man slowly moves in closer, peering around Snape's sudden protective stance to get a better look at me.

"Didn't you tell her already, even Potter knew about _his_ past." The man taunts, shifting his cold blue eyes towards me while slightly biting his lower lip in a not-so appropriate manner I take it. Niya hisses instantly from under my scarf, debating on whether or not she should pounce on him as Snape tenses up completely. The anger of just knowing that this man was a part of her death pushes me towards the edge, the boiling rage that festers below suddenly begins to surface with a strong amount of force powering along behind it.

"Why don't you just leave us alone, huh? I'm not afraid of you." I shot back after being so timid and confused on what's going on; I finally find my voice. Snape's hue instantly disappears and I feel his body growing tenser by the second while I push past him and basically reverse the roles.

"Nala don't." He protests calmly, hovering his free hand over my shoulder debating on whether or not to place it down in an attempt to control my temper. I hold my wand out pointing directly towards the creepy guy with beautiful hair, not holding back anymore since I just _know_ he was one of them; the ones who had killed her on the platform.

"I see, I see. Already grew attached, Severus? Tsk, tsk, you know he'll be angry, but she is pretty feisty; I don't blame you for falling in love." He taunts once more, even though the taunts are towards Professor Dumbass over here, I can't help but feel like they're also meant for me; in a way that they both know something that I don't.

A confused feeling washes over me and causes me to hesitate, what the _Hell_does he mean by 'in love?' Certainly Pouty Pants doesn't feel _that_much in the slightest, never mind the fact that he's twice my damn age. What the fuck is this guy going on about, clearly it's more taunts he's throwing at us; and I'll be damned, it's working.

The man's smug grin grows larger by the second, noticing that Snape refuses to say or do much for who knows what reason. They must know each other considering he knows his name. Without thinking I let my anger get the best of me, I flick my wrist instantly, a loud sparking sound can be heard followed by a large trail of flames bursting from the tip of my wand, circling the man who now changes his tone from a mocking one, into slight fear. The flames illuminate around him in a circle while my raging emotions cause them to soar higher and lock him in place; it's kind of scary how my best performance requires a bit of anger.

Snape stands back in awe; he hasn't seen anything like this in a long time I take it, considering he's still in shock standing behind me while the blonde man nearly sinks into the ground from sheer fright. The overwhelming power coursing through my body causes a slight power trip as I've never experienced such strength like this before. Even back in his classroom I wasn't nearly this strong when he mentioned my mother's name; maybe I shouldn't bottle up my anger anymore...

Dumbfounded, the both of them can't help but stare at the mess I've created, instantly the blonde haired man takes to the sky without saying another word, covered in a dark wispy essence and vanishes from sight, leaving the two of us here to deal with the massive flames before us that my anger had conjured up.

The bitter anger finally subdues while Snape silently whisks his wand towards the flames in an attempt to control them enough so that they would smolder down into embers and letting the reemerging snowfall take care of the rest. I can feel his mind surging with questions, ranging from my bold attitude, and then to my tempter issues that linger around. He slowly faces towards me while the rest of the dark figures take to the sky and screw off somewhere else. His eyes try to hold mine as he approaches me carefully while pocketing his wand in the process.

"I have never in my life met someone as bold as you are; I have yet discovered if that is a good thing or a bad thing. However, judging based on how you made Lucius flee with his tail between his legs..." He trails off of his sentence, catching eyes with Niya who's buried underneath my hair and scarf as he heads towards the massive door, swinging it open and waiting for me to hurry along. I guess his name would be revealed to me after all; so he really Is Draco's father...

He has a point, I don't know if this'll be a good thing or a bad thing. I've always had a temper problem; but it was never this bad I swear. Just recently it's been building up, and it's probably due to my mother being killed and the fact that I have nowhere to go for school breaks and the summer.

"Thanks- I guess..? Do you think the party's still going to happen after this surprise?" I graze past him gently as he follows along beside me down the hall, the large door creaks to a slow shut but none the less catches the latch and closes tightly behind the two of us. The flames on the nearby candle holders flicker wildly as we pass by them and simmer down after they leave my presence; I guess even when I feel fine mentally I'm still angry.

Niya leaps from her comfy spot, her little claws click against the tiles as she collides with them. Her tail flickers a tiny bit before pattering along down the hall just lingering a couple feet ahead of us while easily being sidetracked at every little thing that scurries across the shiny floor.

"That I do not know, it wouldn't surprise me if Dumbledore confined it to a smaller area instead of the Great Hall." He ponders a bit, curious himself as to what's going to happen later on today since our small finals game was rudely interrupted.

I can't really feel my heart as well as I could before, probably from the adrenaline rush that happened earlier; that and my mind's still racing about the whole flame conjuring thing... I've never been able to produce such high quality magic; especially with fire.

I can't help but shake that odd feeling, especially after what Lucius said earlier as well, surely _he_can't be 'in love' with me as well, it's insane to even cross that line but he went over it so casually, and the way Snape reacted about it was so timidly and almost terrified even, you can't be serious; he doesn't even _know_me let alone he's literally twice my age for fuck's sake.

We scrape past a handful of students who now begin to cluster around the halls from different Houses, not real long knowing where to go, either that or they're just talking about the bizarre event that just happened. each of them give us weird glances here and there while we casually make our way past them without speaking any words between us, or them for that matter. I can hear their hushed voices after we leave their presence, _oh boy;_the rumors begin and I don't even like this guy enough to consider him a friend; he changed a lot that's for sure but he's still a dumbass.

"Why don't you head off towards your dorm, I'm sure Draco will show up to greet you once we've decided on what to do." The second we round one of the corners towards a small, narrow staircase, that heads downstairs towards the Slytherin Common room comes into view. I can tell he doesn't want to leave my side per say, but he knows he'll have to converse with the others later on in the hour.

Yeah and then ask him why his father tried to kill me just now? That's a _great_icebreaker. But it's a good idea, since I know if he doesn't approach my dorm the twins will if they aren't injured.

I silently nod my head, not really having anymore words left to say so to speak. I have too many things going through my mind to even process right now. He begins to descend down the steps before I do, I quickly follow his movements as we approach the massive hidden door to our Slytherin area; clearly he doesn't want to leave me alone after that encounter we had.

"I'll be seeing you, Miss Lamia. Farewell." His lips twitch into a smirk while Niya rolls her eyes smugly at me, pushing past me and entering the dimly lit room as the Professor begins to walk back towards the staircase and disappears from my presence with a lingering color so different from the rest that I can't help but be intrigued.

"Oooh, '_Miss Lamia_' that's a new one." Niya snickers, jumping out of the way as my foot automatically tries to kick her in the rear. She bolts up the step and watches me from afar, as I quickly make my way towards the fireplace so I can rest a bit and take some time to process what just happened.

"Shut it, cat; you're not even supposed to be talking anyways." I toss my shoulder bag and scarf over the edge of one of the couches down by the fireplace, kicking my shoes off and sitting down close to the warm, toasty fire that's already been lit in the fireplace. Niya eventually steps closer to me while snickering to herself, she jumps up on the couch cushion beside me and sits directly in my line of sight.

"About what happened today, you know... The whole Lucius, and the fire trap thing you pulled? You really need to get it under control of you'll end up killing someone." Her calm voice hints a bit of seriousness in it for once; instead of the usual sly remarks and constant pestering. She does have a point, I don't even know how my emotions affect the way my magic works. I still can't even think about it without getting slightly agitated.

The warm fire unfreezes my skin from the bitter cold weather outside, the flames leap high in the fireplace as the ancient bricks sizzle and crack along with the sparks surrounded by metal bars. The room is darkly lit as is the rest of the castle as the flickering light casts shadows of all of the objects across the ancient walls.

"I know." I pull my knees up closer to my face on the couch while wrapping my arms tightly around them staring deeply inside of the fire, letting my mind wander to wherever it wants to go; it bounces back and forth between the incident on the platform, to how Lucius used the words 'in love' while addressing Snape and I at the same time. That one I seriously hope isn't true, I know he was taunting us; him in particular but if that one specifically is true; then we have a problem.

Niya places her paw on my foot, brushing her face against my legs while purring furiously. She then twists her body around one of my legs and jumps up on the front part of my skirt; curled up in a small furry ball with her eyes closed as she relaxes a bit in the empty Common room. Time slowly passes by while neither of us move, nobody else as far as I know shows up through the door so they must be doing other things right about now. I'm still worried about the twins, I haven't seen them at all yet and I'm scared that something terrible happened. I'm sure they'd come through my dorm room and find me here if that were the case; but so far not even the upstairs doors haven't been touched since before the finals.

A ghostly image appears casually sitting beside the piano, Naomi smiles brightly at me from behind as she happily makes her way over to us, leaping over the other part of the couch and sitting down with her feet crossed on the cushion.

"Hey Nala, I saw what happened and tried to contact you but Severus wouldn't go away; is everything alright?" She cautiously asks, her dead-like eyes pierce mine with a sense of respect and sincere regret as she witnessed the onslaught of the masked figures invading our game.

My eyes glaze over, remembering the incident with every detail imaginable as the last image I had of the twins were them diving down to save the Ravenclaw seeker.

"The twins haven't shown up yet, all though Draco's dad tried to stop us from entering the castle..." My words trail off as her eyes widen a bit in shock, she then takes in a deep breath and sighs a little bit; uncrossing her legs and standing up from the couch.

My eyes curiously cross hers while she hesitates for a very long time, eventually she clasps her hands together and holds my gaze with a serious, and terrified reflection.

"Lucius, he was a bit of a character back in his days as far as I remember. He always hung around Severus and your mother; and since I only appeared in front of her and not them, they have no idea how much I know about the both of them." Her eyes dart around for a bit, making sure that nobody else had entered the room.

"Really, that explains how he knew Snape's name and vice versa." My eyes linger around as well, since an uneasy feeling can be felt around the three of us. Niya shifts around, wide awake and sulking a bit; probably because Naomi's going to tell me what happened after it being kept from me for so long.

"He loved Tabitha, he was so_ hellbent_ on getting her to notice him with his wealthy parents; but then she disappeared for the remainder of the year. I take it nobody told you where exactly she went, so I'll tell you since it was my fault." Her eyes instantly drop down to her feet, still a bit shaken by the events I presume. The flames in the fireplace flicker wildly as Naomi speaks; lightning up the room a bit more than it did before when it was just the two of us in here. You can almost clearly see the Slytherin banners strung around the place, and the detailed paintings who actually don't move at all and aren't charmed like the others as well as the crumbling ancient steps that lead towards the two doors that represent each dorm room in this section.

"I found a time turner in one of the abandoned rooms up near the Ravenclaw tower one day, and something was clearly wrong with it; I don't know what, but it was just messed up and had a dark presence surrounding it. So I gave it to her to use it since I'm dead; I'm really sorry Nala…" She couldn't even finish her sentence without gathering herself and holding back a few tears. Confused I just stare at her, wondering how or why she is sorry all of a sudden.

"It's alright Naomi, I'm sure it wasn't that bad." I soothe her, well, trying to anyways. She gathers herself once again and slowly shakes her head.

"You don't even know…" Her voice trembles under the tears while Niya silently doesn't move at all, knowing exactly what Naomi's talking about. The room's still quiet, a few dripping noises can be heard above but to be fair we_ are_ underneath a lake right now; which isn't really safe.

"I never told you how I died, and it ties in with this story." Instantly my mouth shuts, she holds my gaze for a few more seconds before continuing on.

"She tried setting the date for it, but it was stuck back to twenty years in the past; so she used it anyways and ended up still in the same room, but with different people and older uniforms."

"There was a devious man in his seventh year, he was already feared by most and nobody wanted to be around him; he was broken in all of the wrong ways and was just negative towards everything. Tabitha found him, and they were inseparable after the first conversation."

Naomi pauses for a bit, glancing down towards Niya who just stares right back at her with her tail twitching furiously. A devious man, I remember Snape mentioning how she dwelled too much into dark magic and she did something she regretted; this must have been it.

"He was a powerful wizard, and certainly feared by Dumbledore himself who was still in charge of this school mind you, he would conjure up anything and everything and devour whatever got in his way; he was sadistic and crazy and she loved him for the sheer fact that she thought she could fix him." Her words tremble once again as she continues on with the story, the flames seem to simmer down enough so that I can really only see her close up and everything else appears to be pitch black. My heart feels like it's about to burst, I'm finally starting to get somewhere with my past; after all those years of wondering what happened. Naomi's aura shifts instantly into a huge, smoldering-like dark color, reflecting back as a guilt and regret while she tries her best to keep her focus on the story.

"I was a Hufflepuff during this time, I noticed her but not for the same reason that she recognized me for; she was shocked to see me alive, and told me how she knew me and I went silent. I was terrified, I was going to die young and neither of us knew how; until _he _decided to try something completely inhumane…" She trails off a little, gazing down at her old uniform and placing a hand against her chest; watching it go through her clothes and skin as she silently pulls it back out. Even though what she did back in the building caused me to feel and touch spirits, she can't really feel anything for herself.

"He made sure to do it fast, as he was looking into a way to take over the world with an iron fist. I was subjected to various torture methods all for his little study session with biology and how he could dominate the minds of the Muggles. Eventually it led to my death, and he did something unforgivable; he tried to bring me back to life."

My eyes widen in shock, I've heard about the whole zombie apocalypse scenario back in my old school; Hell, all of us had _plans_ to survive that thing for crying out loud. I always knew it'd be possible to create a zombie, I just didn't know how and judging by the way this story is going; I think this guy created one with Naomi.

She trembles again, reliving a bitter past that probably had her left feeling scared and isolated for that matter. She regains control of her tears once more and powers on through the story as the flames continue to keep burning in the background.

"I felt it, I felt my body decomposing, and rotting away along with a god awful stench I was stuck with; I couldn't even speak it was just gurgled noises and he was fascinated even more. I didn't last long in my decaying form; Tabitha found me and took my life after witnessing the abomination he had created with a living being." Niya stares intensely at her with a forgiving look of compassion, I guess even she didn't know the full story on what happened. I can't really believe what I'm hearing, even though I have living proof in front of me, everything seems so surreal in this place; I don't even know why I'm here.

"She tried so hard to get to him, to make him a better person and to fix what he had become; but it was too late for him, and it was too late for the both of you…" She trails off her sentence once again, this time the tears just pour from her eyes and disappear on the floor while she tries so hard to pull herself together.

"It's alright, I promise" I hop to my feet instantly, setting Niya down on the spot I was just sitting in and walk towards the crying girl, wrapping my arms around her tightly and holding her close as she silently sobs against my shoulder and releases a cool breeze of air surrounding her form.

"She did everything to make him feel loved; and I do mean _everything_. She got the time turner set to the proper date from one of the old Ravenclaw Professors back then and she was later back in her own time period almost a year later; carrying a set of twins inside her."

My jaw slightly drops, I kind of know the rest from here, considering Sennith's now dead, and my life was spent locked up indoors for the remainder of my days. I pull slightly away from her a bit as she tries her best to hold my gaze and forcing out a faint smile; reliving the memory.

"We didn't know there were two of you, she only talked about the boy; and that caused Lucius to get furious every second she mentioned it. Severus was beyond happy for her, all though she wasn't happy with herself for what she did. She knew he was still out there, and she dreaded the information leaking out to him about his children; we all did…" She powers through the emotional part of reliving everything, also checking around to make sure we're still alone.

"Eventually he found out, a couple years after you both were born she managed to hide you I'm assuming since even_ I_ didn't know about you at the time, and he sent out a few of his followers to '_take care_' of the accident. I'm so sorry Nala, I didn't want to be the one to tell you this…" She collapses into another fit of tears, showing her dedication to my mother through all of this as she silently sobs away again for a few more minutes as the two of us stand on one of the ancient rugs in front of the fireplace that illuminates our shadows against the crumbling walls.

"Your father was a Slytherin. And his name; was Tom Riddle."


	11. Dark secrets

The undeniable silence circulates through the still air between the three of us, Niya is remarkably quiet and hasn't spoken up about anything at all since Naomi had told me the majority of the missing pieces. The fireplace's smoke heavily thickens while Naomi silently takes a seat down beside me, wiping her eyes with her sleeve and smiling softly.

I still can't get the image of the twins out of my mind, nobody has told me if they were alright or not and I have no way of communicating with them besides physically searching for them in this massive castle.

I guess you can say that half of my mind is at ease now knowing the missing bits and pieces of what exactly happened. Mom thought she could fix him, but in the end she couldn't and ended up with Sennith and I. I find it ironic how back at my old school we always talked about the zombie apocalypse; and here this guy was making a _living_zombie out of conjured flesh fueled with magic. Something tells me that it's possible now, screw Biology class; everything we know so far must be a lie. This place is far from the mysteries that linger in the back of your mind constantly; there must be a lot more out there than we think. Who knows, maybe the end of the world is at the hands of us; the magical ones.

"You have no idea how happy I am, at first I was upset that Tabitha kept such a huge secret from me, but I knew she had a motive." Her lifeless eyes gaze into mine as Niya rubs up against my leg, gazing around the empty room.

"She kept it from me as well until you popped out. I guess the cat's out of the bag now, huh?" Niya pipes up, smirking as usual before hopping down off of the couch and curling up into ball on the ancient rug, trying to retain whatever warmth comes her way.

The toasty warm air lingers throughout the chilly room, even though we're in the dungeons and it's usually damp, I still don't mind the warm air once in awhile. Despite my affinity; for lack of better words, to fire I find it slightly ironic how I favor the cold. Everything about this school is unique in it's own way, if the walls could speak, they would have quite the little collection of stories from over the centuries; and I wouldn't mind listening to every single one.

My father was a Slytherin, perhaps that's why everybody was silent when I was placed in that House. I don't understand the meaning of the name Tom Riddle, but judging on what Naomi had said and what he did to her I'm sure Snape would have an answer. Speaking of him, I wonder how he'll feel knowing that Naomi had opened up about what he was clearly trying to hide from me... I get it that he's 'keeping me safe' as he likes to put it, but why does he even care enough to smother me, that's what I don't get.

I peel my eyes away from Naomi's and gaze deeply into the fireplace, watching the wood slowly splinter down into ash while a few sparks escape every so often. It feels like an eternity had passed since I was whisked away and told to stay here until Draco showed up, I really do hope everybody is alright from that incident, Snape must have known it would happen otherwise he wouldn't have been so edgy beforehand.

Naomi joins me as well, gazing intensely into the flames while her eyes are still watery from before. A low howl can be heard from the creaky windows as the wind outside begins to pick up the pace, blowing loose flurries around the frigid air.

"I hope Severus won't be angry with me, you should have known all of that anyways, before you came to Hogwarts..." She lifts her legs up onto the couch and wraps her arms around her knees, watching Niya curl up on the rug in front of the fireplace after being sprawled out seconds after.

My mind brings me back to the train station, mom never had anything about her indicating that she would tell me anything about the past. But was she ever careful of our surroundings, even during the way to London; she made sure to keep quiet in public places and always had an eye on me.

"I'm sure he wouldn't mind, he was going to spill the beans somehow. Mom however, she didn't even mention anything up until her death." My eyes linger towards the door behind us as the handle jiggles around a little bit, Niya jumps right up with her tail puffed out, and her teeth showing whereas Naomi quickly disappears in thin air, knowing that she's still lingering around in the room.

My heart races, it could be Lucius again and after his _affectionate_ look he kept giving me I wouldn't want to be caught dead with him in any place without Niya. Judging from what Naomi had said about him having a thing for my mother; and the given obvious fact that I'm a spitting image of her, something tells me that this will cause a few problems down the road.

The blonde boy comes in through the door, turning around and flashing me a quick grin while shutting the door behind him, Niya hisses profusely at the poor kid before giving up and trotting underneath the piano that's off to the side. A small sigh of relief escapes my lungs, I'm just glad it wasn't any of those hooded figures or else I'd be screwed.

"I was looking for you, the party's still being held in the Great Hall in about a couple hours. I ran into George and he told me to let you know that they are alright." He casually makes conversation while unraveling his scarf from his neck and taking off his House robe. He folds them up and holds onto them while he makes his way towards one of the chairs to place them. All though something seems a bit off about the last part, I know for a fact they wouldn't even _look_ at him if they didn't know where he was heading.

His sudden change in personality will always catch me off, considering he was a rude little rich brat fascinated by those cloaked figures at the train station. I don't get why he's trying to change all of a sudden. First impressions are everything to me, and so far he hasn't been doing too well. I'm still a bit iffy on the whole 'running into George' bit, though.

"Cool, I was actually just wondering that myself. Not to mention about the whole '_what will I wear_' drama. " I force out a reply to the kid while relaxing after nearly getting ready to jump whoever would come through the main door. Especially after that incident that one night, when somebody was out here, which resulted in me using the back entrance to get back to my dorm. Come to think of it, how come nobody here even thought about the safety here? I've heard stories of monsters being locked away in the depths of the castle, and at least a couple students die each year; why the _Hell_ is this place still up and running?

His eyes strike mine with his pride gleaming through his aura. In a lot of ways he _does_remind me of the Lucius Naomi told me about in the past, which could be a bad thing now that I think about it. I wonder how he'd feel knowing that his father probably thinks of me in ways I don't even want to consider.

"Did anybody else come through? I was separated from Crabbe and Goyle." He asks me curiously, grabbing his House robe from the chair that he just recently set it on and tossing it over his shoulder, sitting comfortably in his grey sweater vest and black dress pants. I guess he cares about his little minions to some degree if he even mentioned their names to somebody that's outside of the group.

I don't think I should mention Naomi, she only shows herself to whoever whenever she wants to; so I guess that's a no for him. But to be fair, I have no idea who exactly knows about her since she was so timid around me for awhile.

"Others? Uh, no it's just been me and Niya, ever since Snape dropped me off-" I was interrupted by an obvious snort of disgust, while Draco tries to hide his facial expression; but his aura says it all. The room quiets down, even the noise from the flames seem to settle, I should have known he would be acting like this. Despite his nature; he's still an asshole at heart. I guess on the other hand he has someone else to hate besides Harry.

He radiates with an ugly color surrounding him, waves of disgust and jealousy radiate off of him like no tomorrow while he desperately tries to cover it up. My mind instantly goes back to Lucius, and the expressions he came up with when he saw Snape and I side by side, it was almost the same type of reaction that Draco's having; minus the snotty remarks.

"What's so funny, he's just concerned after _your_father tried to kidnap me." Defensively the words shoot from my lips without thinking, piercing him like a dagger coated in flames. It is true, his sole purpose was to clearly stop me from entering the castle hence why they all backed off after I nearly burned him alive. And judging by the story Naomi told me, I think their leader is my father himself.

His cold blue eyes graze mine with a bit of anger laced in between his glare. Instantly he changes from his unusual _good_behavior, straight into his normal, Malfoy self. Self loathing and undeniably jealous of every little thing, it's just Snape for crying out loud; why does he bring out the ugly side of everyone? After all, I'd gladly take somebody else over him _any_day.

"Of _course_ he's babying you now, father _was_ right. He is a freak, and you're not any better." He retaliates with venom dripping from his words, turning around and heading up the steps towards his dorm in a tantrum-like manner. I can already feel the anger burning up inside of me, and that fire over there won't help anybody if it explodes.

"The only thing he was _right_ about was underestimating me; next time I won't go easy!" I holler from down at the bottom of the staircase, the flames in the fireplace begin to rise dangerously high; displaying my current state of mind to everybody in the room. Niya's eyes widen greatly, in fear of the rising flames as Naomi fades in and out from the corner of the room, also displaying the same expression as Niya.

He snorts again, doing his little rich boy hair flip while disappearing behind the door and slamming it tightly behind him. Niya holds her breath as she calmly comes out from underneath the piano, her eyes dart up towards the staircase and then back towards me; followed by the _flaming_ elephant in the room.

"Finally cracked the bad egg, I see." She scurries towards me with a slight hesitation, probably from the rising flames that are directly behind me in the fireplace. The flames sizzle and crack wildly, licking the metal bars and popping out a few sparks here and there that singe the detailed rug on the floor.

"I guess so, is that why you never liked him?" I ask, bending down and scooping her up in my arms as she gazes around the room from this new height she's at. Despite being an extreme know-it-all, she still has her cat-like tendencies; like laser pointers and cat toys.

"I never liked _any_of them, Lucius was the worst when I was here with Tabitha, and Draco _is_right; Snape is a freak." She admits, licking her paws delicately as the raging fire begins to slowly simmer down. If anything she would know more about them than anybody in this castle, she was the one who practically grew up with both of them when my mother was alive so I should trust her judgement. All though I can't shake the feeling that maybe Snape is right when he says that I'll be safer with him, especially after what happened today at the Quidditch Pitch.

Niya quietly sighs, she then focuses her attention towards me with a look of defeat. Her shoulders slouch forward a little, while her tail doesn't flick around like it normally does.

"Nala, I didn't want to be the one to tell you this but; your father is Lord Voldemort. We didn't want you to know, we were only trying to protect you."

Time itself seemed to have slowed down, it feels like ages since Draco stormed away and locked himself up in his little tower away from human contact after showing his true colors, not to mention Niya's sudden confession. It really makes me wonder how long she knew about this. I don't get why he was so defensive about Snape like that; he was just concerned for my well being, which probably has to do with me being Tom Riddle's; my bad, _Voldemort's_ child since Sennith has been dead for years. Judging by everyone's reactions and lack of information being thrown towards me, I must be a crucial part in something here.

"How long did you know this, and who the Hell is '_we_'?" I can't even begin to piece the feeling I'm trying to process together. I heard about him briefly, nobody would tell me his name not even McGonagall or Dumbledore himself. Half of me just wants this to be over, to just go back to Maine and pretend that this is all just a nightmare. I read the name in one of the books in the library, detailing the unfortunate events of Tom Riddle's past that I intended to keep a mental note on. It stated everything, from the orphanage, being related to the founder of the Slytherin House, to his fascination with dark magic. I'm related to him; that's _fantastic_.

Niya quiets right down, gazing towards Naomi who's wandering about in the corner and keeping her mouth shut. Niya peels her eyes away from the spirit and focuses back onto me, tapping her paws on the furniture.

"I knew this for awhile, Tabitha wanted me to be the one to tell you since she knew something would happen to her. As for '_we_', I think you should ask him yourself next time he randomly pops in uninvited." She hangs her head a little, I can tell she didn't want to be the one to tell me, let alone figure out a good time to even bring it up. But after the whole encounter we've had during the Quidditch game; I guess everything's off limits now.

My thoughts quiet down, still trying to process the recent information given to me. I basically know everything I was looking for, except for who murdered her, and who those dark figured bastards are. Judging by the hint she left me focusing on who we is, something strongly tells me that it's Professor Dumbass himself. Maybe he isn't as dumb as I'm making him out to be if that's the case.

Naomi begins to pace around the room, fading in and out from my vision as she continues to wander about in a stressed-like manner. I can tell, not by reading her weird ghost aura that she's beyond stressed, but just by the way she's acting since she's usually so happy and content; not to mention the bombshell Niya dropped on me moments ago. My eyes watch her while she eventually stops in place, whips around and flashes me this huge grin from out of nowhere.

"I know this is random, and completely off topic but, I think I have something for you to wear to the Halloween party soon." She forces out another smile while instantly vanishing from sight and doing whatever it is that she does best, leaving Niya and I alone in the dark Common room without even giving us a chance to speak.

The flames flicker against the burning wood that's nestled away behind bars of steel. It almost feels like a metaphor to me, to cage my fiery side considering the metal bars are for everybody's safety from the dangerous flames. My fingers burn slightly, glancing down I notice the smoke emitting from the fingertips on my left hand. Confused and slightly curious, I raise my hand and look at it closer. This is getting out of control, how am I even doing this, is it related to my father?

"Something the matter?" Niya quietly asks, hopping out of my lap ad gazing down at my fingertips with a slightly worried hue of color surrounding her. She knows what she did was the right thing, but however I don't think she was quite alright with the timing.

The small sparks ignite along my fingers, leaving a small fiery strip that connects straight down towards the palm of my hand while the flames quietly leap around, staying perfectly still in the center without little to no concentration. I remember reading about how not everyone can control an element with such ease, so the fact that my hand is lighting up like a firework kind of worries me greatly. Especially after discovering more than half of the questions I've been stuck with I can't really tell if this is just the emotion building up or what.

"I, I don't know. I feel fine, and I thought that wizards couldn't conjure magic without a wand; a channeling tool..." My words trail off, gazing into the flickering light, the burning heat source that's lingering in the palm of my hand and illuminating the small area that I'm sitting in.

My heart feels at ease almost, watching the very matter that can easily destroy anything in it's path. This just has to be linked to the so called powerful line of wizards I hail from, it's odd hearing that, especially coming from my own words. I've always grew fond of RPGs especially ones with Mage classes. Usually they give you certain move sets, like fire and ice, or other ones along the lines of that. You guessed it; I always went the fire route. Everything I did back in Maine seems to have some sort of impact on what's happening now. I was always connected to the element of fire, especially when we went camping; I could just gaze inside of those flames for hours on end if I could. I wonder if I should let Snape know about this; let alone Dumbledore himself.

"Well, I think it should stay between us, I've never seen anything like this before; I don't think anyone can do it. Nala, I'm serious, there's something strange here."

My eyes switch from the small, concentrated flame sizzling in my hand towards the cat who's basically grown up with me throughout the years. And when she says something isn't normal or right; she means it.

Confused yet again, I turn my attention toward her instead of my hand. How dangerous can they possibly be? I'll easily drown them all out with no remorse if I have to, I almost killed one of them for crying out loud. I thought things would get better after coming here to this new school but to be completely honest; everything's gone to shit. Mom got murdered right in front of me, some Demon wannabe tossed me off the edge of a cliff, none of my marks are doing well in Potions class; I just want to pass it so that way I'll never have to deal with Snape ever again, and now all of a sudden I have a group of misfits chasing me around with black smoke and basically hailing Satan? I'm not okay with any of this.

"What do you mean, what else is going on that you know for sure?" My eyes pierce hers with a strong intention of getting an answer from her.

"Tom Riddle's 'form' is out there, he has his followers, they _know_ you're here. And they won't stop until they get what they want." She returns my stare with hers, her color hue lights up in a light shade of blue, showing her sympathy after revealing the truth.

"The hooded figures..." I finish the sentence, cluing in quietly. Remembering the scene from the train station, and the encounter I had moments before I was thrown off the cliff. Speaking of that, how did Snape know I was going to be there since Dumbledore mentioned that it was him who found me. I swear every time I feel comfortable around that freak he just keeps getting more mysterious and it's bugging me. How can I trust him with my life since he always goes on about 'being safer with me' when he hides almost everything from me, including my past? If they want me so badly like she's saying they do, then how come Lucius fled like that? He had his opportunity to sweep away the flames like Snape did without a care in the world; which reminds me, how the _Hell_ did Dumbass do that? I thought it was nearly impossible to calm down a fire with little to no ease.

Naomi instantly reappears after a few minutes of being gone, breaking us from our train of thought, and conversation all while carrying a beautiful Victorian era dress full of ruffles, and a lacy beige corset that blends in with the bottom half. There's a satin white long sleeve part that's laced around the corset and eventually splits down the middle, framing the bottom part with a massive amount of ruffles, It's stunning that's for sure; but I feel like I would die from heat in this thing, along with the lack of oxygen. She flashes me a quick smile once more, tossing a pair of small dress boots that are also beige and match the dress onto the couch beside me, and gently placing the ruffly dress on the edge of the couch, looking quite pleased with herself and the findings that she scavenged for in the abandoned empty rooms.

"I knew I could find it, here; try it on-" She couldn't even finish her sentence without a strange sound emitting from the fireplace, almost like a weird humming noise mixed with the sound of somebody literally falling down the chimney shaft, causing all of us to tense up automatically, getting ready to fight or flight at any moment. My heart races inside of my chest, my mind flashes from different thoughts, like Tom Riddle himself trying to kidnap me, or worse; Lucius. All of the tension and anxiety quickly builds up inside of me, awaiting our fate.

The smoke from the fireplace eventually flares up into a bright green color; a heavy feeling rises inside of me, as a dark figure emerges from the fireplace, dusting off his dark robe while gazing up at me with the same old stone cold expression that I grew rather used to. I'm almost happy that it was only him, considering the other thoughts fluttering inside my overactive imagination. All he's missing is the red suit and a sack full of toys, I doubt it would work though; with his shitty attitude and all.

Naomi instantly freezes up, locking eyes with him while he tenses up as well, piercing his dark eyes with her dead ones as he approaches the both of us while tracking a few soot colored footprints along the ancient rug. Naomi seems almost paralyzed at the fact that he had caught sight of her lingering in the Common room, almost as if she wasn't supposed to be here.

"Long time no see, Miss Grey. I take it you've been waltzing around here for quite some time now, no?" His eyes narrow deeply, crossing his arms across his chest as his eyes slightly shift from hers to mine in an uncomfortable manner. Hie aura slightly singes through his 'barrier', showing a fine array of flustered colors in an attempt to figure out why she is still here inside of the castle.

Naomi doesn't even muster the strength to speak a word, she just stands there completely shocked while gazing back at the man who stands before her. She stammers a few words out of her mouth, before instantly vanishing and fleeing the scene while Snape approaches the couch I'm sitting on, and focuses his attention back onto me.

"You startled her,_nice_." The sarcasm drips from my mouth while I shift around on the couch, pulling my feet up on the cushion so I my feet don't freeze from touching the floor. I guess he finally knows that she's still running around Hogwarts, that and she's been talking to me lately as well.

"My bad." He sneers, counterattacking my sarcasm with his as he gazes around the room with a look of disbelief sewn across his face. Niya throws me a strange look, indicating that it actually is him she was talking about earlier. Now's my chance, I guess.

"And may I ask where Malfoy disappeared to?" He turns around after gazing towards the massive staircase, his aura radiates with a slight concern for the kid. His dark robe emits a different scent than the usual death and destruction I'm used to, it's almost mixed with a heavier amount of death than usual. After feeling almost every emotion for this guy, anything ranging from anger, to pity I can't help but almost feel offended that I'm disappointed in him for holding back the truth. If anything, he should have some reason as to why he never told me in the first place; and I swear if he says '_it was to protect you_' I'm going to snap.

"Him? Oh, he ran upstairs like a little bitch after I told him the truth about how his father tried to _kidnap_me, why do you ask?" My eyes lock onto his, pulling myself up from the couch while Niya hesitates greatly, and scrambles her way underneath one of the nearby chairs. My arms fold across my chest, I can feel my skin just burning up from the anger boiling inside.

Snape's eyes widen a little, losing his snarky expression and replaces it with his usual scowl. He then lets out a deep sigh, walking over towards the fireplace and whisking around his wand, probably forming some sort of barrier of some sort I'd imagine.

"How much do you know about this whole, _predicament?"_His eyes narrow deeply, gazing up the steps to the dorms once more, and keeping a look out for Naomi if she ever reappears again. My lips almost curl into a smirk, I just find it hilarious that he has the strength to even _ask_ me how much I know about.

"A lot actually, anywhere from Lucius seeing me as my mother and wanting to bang me, to the simple fact that _oh!_My father is fucking _Lord Voldemort_."

Snape goes quiet, I've actually never seen him at a loss of words before. The flames begin to lick the top of the fireplace now as they begin to rise a little higher inside the chimney. Niya cowers in fear underneath the chair still, knowing that Snape's about to get the full blunt end of my anger and there's nothing that she or he could say or do about it.

"I didn't want you to find out this way, now do you see why it is crucial that you let me help you?" He simply protests, knowing damn well that's going to do absolutely nothing to change my opinion on the fact of the matter.

"Why does it have to be you of all people, _huh_? What makes you _so_ special to the point where you dictate my life? Didn't you already had enough dealing with me during the after hours of classes?" My eyes lock onto his with a fierce position, he simply follows suit and calmly approaches my gaze with cold one. The damp air lingering inside the dungeon eventually turns into an intense warmth from the fireplace flickering wickedly, the silence is almost unbearable between the two of us, and I have no idea where Naomi disappeared to ever since Snape scared her off.

"I can't tell you because I don't know the answer myself, by all means if you want the truth right now I can tell you the rest of the missing pieces. But you have to promise me one thing." His eyes dart across the room towards Niya who's frozen in place, she must already know what he's about to say, and judging by that she knows a lot more about the story than she led on.

You're kidding me right? You want me to promise you one thing after you sat here and lied to my face several times about not knowing anything about my past? After all of the friendly conversations we've had this past month down in the damp dungeon struggling to figure out why I can't get the hang of Potion making, you finally decide to set an ultimatum. If anything I should be the one setting one on you, dick.

"_Great_. Name your price, and keep it PG13." I can't hold back the sarcasm any longer, not that I ever could anyways. His eyes narrow in confusion at my choice of words, but none the less taking in a deep sigh and running his fingers against the dress Naomi had found for me to wear to the party.

"Don't go to the party that will be happening in the Great Hall in a few moments, stay away from the crowd of people."


End file.
